Archived Giving the store away.

[lolaboss]

I feel this happens all the time, but doesn't store and upper management understand how a business is supposed to work. You offer a product and sell it for a profit. Basic business 101. However, I have been giving our store away for free and from the sound of it so have you guys. Let's give examples of what management has allowed these "guests" to get away with.

• Lady was buying a bunch of hba products( deodorants,toothpaste,etc). Anyways her bill rings up for $90. She has a stack of about 5-$5 off coupons on products she didn't even have, also buy one get one coupons but for wrong items. I scan the first coupon and sure enough it says coupon doesn't match the items. So I say these coupons don't go with these products. Sure enough she asks for a manager so I put the blinker on and the gstl is on a lane so I told him the situation and he says take them we have to get the people out the door(long lines). So she got $90 worth of stuff for $8.
• We for some reason can take an expired coupon now. So just punch the coupon in manually.
• Guest says an item is 39.99 when it's ringing up for 99.99.blinker goes on and lod walks over. Says to ahead and change it without even having someone look.
• Online items returned to the store goes straight into defects.
• Skateboard that didn't have a tag, defect. Why not print a tag?

Let's hear what you guys have.

 

[awbuckit]

Last Christmas:
* lady brought up a $40 tree skirt (which btw, who the hell needs a $40 tree skirt!!) but anyway, she says that someone in the back said she could have it for $5 because there was a bunch on the wrong peghook. I call over the GSA who doesn't call to verify it just says go ahead. I said umm, I'm not doing that. So she reaches over my keyboard and price adjusts it. Still under my # but oh well.
* lady with a ton of kids circling the register area has a pair of expensive headphones. They supposedly rang up the wrong price. They were most likely placed on a wrong peg. Well, got them for the lower price which was I believe about 50% off.

No wonder our raises are SO freaking low!!

***goes to look for expired coupons*** (and I have A BUNCH, let me tell ya...)

 

[TeamRed]

There was a heater for 49.99 and the guest said it was 29.99 the GSTL said go ahead change it. I could think of a few others but that one really sticks out. Want to give out the store okay?? Sure?? Okay??? Okay!!!!!! I bet guests scam and know how they do things so they think hmm let's do this and this and get them on a off night and more than likely they'll change it and boom we got a deal "Score!!!!!! Now granted it's never on TVS and such but still come on!

 

[dani346]

On Thanksgiving/Black Friday I had a guest buying an XBox One or something and he said it was supposed to be about $50 or so cheaper than what it rang up as, I turned on my light and my GSTL said that he was sure it was a different XBox that was supposed to be that price but he made the price change anyway.

 

[PJ5]

i suppose that's a way to get repeat business, even if it's customers who know they can rip off the stores. my store rarely checks anything and for the most part will accept all coupons. if target wants to give it away then fine i just get paid to do their bidding and it's not my money their giving away. as far as our pay, even if they had salesfloor check prices for every person who said it wasn't the right price instead of just taking their word for it that money would't be going to us.

 

[oath2order]

Yesterday I scared off a very likely HBA coupon frauder.

 

[buliSBI]

Long time ago, I had a guest wanting to buy the a number of the California closet sets. But didn't want to pay the regular price for them. She then talks to LOD and starts negotiating price for them if she agrees to sign up and gets approved for a RedCard.

She ended up buying 5 of the California Closet sets getting around 30% after the RedCard discount.

 

[Sickofspot]

We are basically at the "anything goes" mentality at my store. Guest says it is dirt cheap, no worries-just do it. Expired coupons? Not a problem. No receipt, but you paid $40 for the item, even though it comes up at $5? We got you covered... You bought 14 Starbucks drinks which were all the exact same drink (venti size) which were all made wrong, and you have no receipt? Ok, we can take care of that. How are we turning a profit???

 

[iVibe]

The STL just changes prices without calling ahead to check the area. Heck, there are some basic functions she doesn't know about the register. I'm tired of management having a literal "anything goes" at the front end. Our payroll will be slashed to hell because of them and the guest is always right. Even walmart doesn't budge and always takes down week old signs.

Because of this "anything goes" policy or mentality, the guests know that they can get away with anything. Most times I stop them in their tracks, especially coupon frauders, but occasionally whenever the gsa or gstl comes over I am overridden. It's rare that they don't give the guest what they want.

Every now and then I'll change it if the difference is reasonable, or if I'm tired and don't feel like putting up a fight. I enjoy Target, but I'm tired of kissing guests asses.

 

[SFSFun]

The sad part is, now that Target has started down this path, they won't be able to stop. You can't just go from "the guest is always right" to "we'll double check every price change and stop coupon scammers" without getting bad PR and losing a ton of guests.

 

[PullMonkey]

Honestly, I think part of it has to do with management. My store is flexible, yes, but not to the degree I'm seeing here.

I really hope that doesn't change before I quit...

 

[CanuckTM]

One of the nice things about being in liquidation is that we're no longer doing any of this. No refunds, no exchanges, no price adjustments, no price-matching, no nothing. Scan the barcode, if you don't like the price the computer charges you don't have to buy it. You're so angry you'll just leave all your stuff? Not a problem, we're re-shopping 20 carts anyway, your basket can just go right on top of them. You just left the store and then noticed it charged you more than you thought? Sorry, that's why there's a big flashing number facing you showing everything as it rings through, if you cared about it, you'd check it.

It's extremely cathartic.

 

[The Dude Abides]

One of the nice things about being in liquidation is that we're no longer doing any of this. No refunds, no exchanges, no price adjustments, no price-matching, no nothing. Scan the barcode, if you don't like the price the computer charges you don't have to buy it. You're so angry you'll just leave all your stuff? Not a problem, we're re-shopping 20 carts anyway, your basket can just go right on top of them. You just left the store and then noticed it charged you more than you thought? Sorry, that's why there's a big flashing number facing you showing everything as it rings through, if you cared about it, you'd check it.

It's extremely cathartic.

If you want to be shitty with guests you can be since what are they going to do? Fire you.

 

[tgtguy]

The sad part is, now that Target has started down this path, they won't be able to stop. You can't just go from "the guest is always right" to "we'll double check every price change and stop coupon scammers" without getting bad PR and losing a ton of guests.

Very true! Spot is heading down a slippery slope

 

[EagleEye]

Our store is super "strict". By strict I mean we follow printed policies. Coupon policy says we don't accept expired coupons, so we don't. It says the products have to match the coupon, so we check, even LODs. We have a $20 empowerment limit per transaction, which I think is fair because our front end experience scores have skyrocketed since we started pushing empowerment.

Our LODs will even call guest relations when a guest says they're going to call, to make sure guest relations backs us.

We've exceeded our 2% sales growth last year, and I believe vibe has a lot to do with it. Surely, we don't "give the store away", because we are careful with defects and price changes on unreasonable amounts. Is it worth it losing thousands in sales and loyalty from a guest because you needed to spend 10 mins disputing an $8 prince change? No.

 

[PullMonkey]

Our store is super "strict". By strict I mean we follow printed policies. Coupon policy says we don't accept expired coupons, so we don't. It says the products have to match the coupon, so we check, even LODs. We have a $20 empowerment limit per transaction, which I think is fair because our front end experience scores have skyrocketed since we started pushing empowerment.

Our LODs will even call guest relations when a guest says they're going to call, to make sure guest relations backs us.

We've exceeded our 2% sales growth last year, and I believe vibe has a lot to do with it. Surely, we don't "give the store away", because we are careful with defects and price changes on unreasonable amounts. Is it worth it losing thousands in sales and loyalty from a guest because you needed to spend 10 mins disputing an $8 prince change? No.

This is what I believe stores should do. There's obviously not a huge loss in guest satisfaction, and we're not pouring money into a black hole

 

[BullseyeBabe]

At my store it depends on who is watching the front. Sometimes they are asking the SF to check prices when it's only a difference of $2 or less. Other times they just change everything without checking. We have more expired signs and stuff either stocked in the wrong place or flexed incorrectly than I've ever seen.

 

[Triscuit]

There was a pack of 7 pairs of underwear that were AS IS for about 5 dollars, and there were similar ones, 6 packs for regular price at 19.99. Well this lady didn't understand why the 7 pack was marked down to 5 dollars but the 6 pack was 19.99. She was bitching so hard about it that they just let her pick out a pack that was 19.99 and gave it to her for 5 dollars. Wtf

 

[EagleEye]

There was a pack of 7 pairs of underwear that were AS IS for about 5 dollars, and there were similar ones, 6 packs for regular price at 19.99. Well this lady didn't understand why the 7 pack was marked down to 5 dollars but the 6 pack was 19.99. She was bitching so hard about it that they just let her pick out a pack that was 19.99 and gave it to her for 5 dollars. Wtf

It kind of concerns me that a pack of underwear was marked AS IS. We're pretty cautious when it comes to undergarments.

 

[RXninja]

It kind of concerns me that a pack of underwear was marked AS IS. We're pretty cautious when it comes to undergarments.

It's usually because it is not normally sold at your store or it is online only. If fitting room rewrapped it it would say repackage on the label.

 

[RedMan]

For about a couple weeks now, online only items are only marking down 30% instead of 70% so it must have been something else.

 

[pellinore]

Last week ABC news made an announcement that we will begin to take returns from items sold a year ago. This whole process will probably be a process from hell.

 

[pellinore]

too many changes are coming soon which will really make redcard users angry.
Currently RCholders get the 5% off their item...And we get free shipping.

The non-redcard holders get the benefit of free shipping on orders over $25.00. So now every gets most of the shipping fees off.


The return policy is going to include taking products that have been sold in the previous year. Doing returns from a year ago??? Can you even begin to check something that is no longer in the store?
Rolling out this business project may end up becoming the mess that they made of Target Canada. I really hope that they have this figured out before we announce to the world.


I am not going to want to see how this works out.

 

[Flabbergasted]

As a GSA I have made it my mission to enforce the policies to my best ability and to VIBE only conservatively, when and if it is warranted. I tell cashiers to have me check *any time* they feel they aren't comfortable with a price change, even if it is technically within their 20% empowerment. And I have repeatedly swatted the other GSA's hands (she's the exact opposite, unfortunately) when she tells our cashiers to change an item from $45 to $20 without even checking. I have very rarely been overridden by the LOD.

 

[Sickofspot]

As a GSA I have made it my mission to enforce the policies to my best ability and to VIBE only conservatively, when and if it is warranted. I tell cashiers to have me check *any time* they feel they aren't comfortable with a price change, even if it is technically within their 20% empowerment. And I have repeatedly swatted the other GSA's hands (she's the exact opposite, unfortunately) when she tells our cashiers to change an item from $45 to $20 without even checking. I have very rarely been overridden by the LOD.

I think your store is in the minority. Target is desperate. I don't know if we will ever overcome the stigma of 2013's breach. Have you noticed our clientelle is different? We are essentially Walmart or Kmart in a red wrapper now. We have the garage sale guests who want to bargain or argue over every penny. The basic idea now is "give them what they want-it will bring repeat business." Word of mouth is how we get more and more of these people that rip us off royally. But, we thank them for doing it.