Sucky Customer Suckivolves to Sucky Store Owner

[Jay 2K Winger]

There was a nightclub owner/manager who used to buy cigarettes for his business at the wholesale club. Only, as it turned out, he wasn't paying the taxes correctly or something, because I innocently made some comment about it to someone who turned out to be from the tax office. From then on, when the nightclub guy came around to buy supplies for his business, he got much fewer cigarettes.

[Dreamstalker]

At my old store we'd have a c-store owner (boyfriend of a coworker, so he probably used her employee discount on top of the sale) come through with full U-boats of soda when it was 10/$10. And of course this was after Corporate decided the cashiers were not to be trusted with the quantity key, so each of those marathon transactions required a supervisor

During our first "real" sale, the first-week item was an awesomely yummy brand of wafer cookies for half price/BOGO. As there was no limit (supposed to be 3 of any one item) coded into the registers, you had people trying to buy the entire shelf. After we figured this out, J and I tested and proved the theory by "rationing" our stock for one day (stock according to the sale limit by only allowing 3 of any one SKU on the shelf at a time).

Later GM revealed that in NYC, the company caught street vendors in Chinatown selling packs and cases of wafers for a ridiculous markup...they knew it came from us because not only was our shipper the only way to get most of the flavors we have, some crafty soul had devised a way to mark the packages/cases as belonging to that store. Yes, somehow they were able to buy sealed cases (typically that can only be done if a customer specifically pre-orders it).

[Pixelated]

There was an independent movie theater that closed last year. I remember one time they bought out the candy from one store because their own shipment was late.

I could see doing something like that, certainly.

I definitely didn't get the impression that this guy was a successful business owner. I don't judge anyone on their appearance but my instincts say he was a corner cutter who takes the path of least resistance much of the time.

I think you're right about this guy not being a successful business owner. Sounds like he thought "Hey, I've got a spare room! Why not open up a little store in here??"

[LadyofArc]

At my old store we'd have a c-store owner (boyfriend of a coworker, so he probably used her employee discount on top of the sale) come through with full U-boats of soda when it was 10/$10. And of course this was after Corporate decided the cashiers were not to be trusted with the quantity key, so each of those marathon transactions required a supervisor

Oh yep, we had this too. The footy club guy I mentioned in my original post only came through me because he knew that I could usually scan stuff through fast enough to avoid needing to call the supervisor over, but I hated dealing with resellers for this reason too.

The worst offender of late over here (even though I no longer work in retail) is in regards to baby formula. To cut a long story short, due to the melamine scare (IIRC) in China, a LOT of people in my area are buying up tins of baby formula to ship it overseas and make some money from it. It's getting to the point where pretty much anywhere that sells it has put limits on how much someone can purchase at any one time, although that doesn't always stop them. (Another supermarket copped a LOT of flack for point-blank refusing sales of baby formula to anyone who had an Asian-sounding name online)

[Mental_Mouse]

Wait, melamine again? I remember a few years ago that got into pet food, and they executed their equivalent of an FDA Chief! And now in baby formula?

[nutraxfornerves]

About a hundred years ago, I was part owner of a bar. When we first opened, we were terrible at purchasing & inventory. Every so often, someone would come in and start drinking something unusual, say Grasshoppers. We would run out of some ingredient and, to keep the customers happy (we had no regulars yet), we'd run to the net door liquor store & buy the creme de menthe or whatever. Liquor laws being as arcane as they are, it was flat out illegal in our state to buy booze at retail and resell at retail.

Not to mention that buying at retail meant that we lost money on the deal.

[SpyOne]

Why someone would go to a RETAIL STORE to buy something to sell at the RETAIL level is a bit beyond my ability to fit me own head up mine or anyone else's ass. There's the whole wholesale and distribution system designed to feed retail just sitting there, ready to provide goods. (at a lower price, and shipping can be arranged)

It seems impossible, but very often that part about the lower price just isn't true.

I work for a convenience store that it part of an international chain with more than 5000 stores in the US and more than 100 in the city I live in. They use that size to negotiate good deals from distributors.
However, a few years ago a local grocery store chain was selling (famous sports drink) at a price lower than we got from the distributor, despite the fact that we bought from the same distributor they did. In fact, the owner of one of our stores wound up with an arrangement with his local grocery store where he just called their distributor rep directly and told them what he wanted so it could be added to the store's order (he then ran over to the grocery store with a van to pick it up).

Frequently I find stuff for sale at the grocery store for less than we pay our distributors. Ramen for example.
Everybody sees the high prices at convenience stores and thinks that the store owners are gouging their customers, but the reality is the distributors gouge convenience stores because we can't order stuff by the truckload.

[Dreamstalker]

I suspect that some of the customers that I see with full baskets/carts of one brand are shop owners in the North End who are far too small to get a contract with the producers we work with. As long as there isn't a limit imposed and they don't wipe out our shipment J is okay with that.

[notalwaysright]

Many people come across the border to buy stuff at the warehouse store and resell up North. Also there are a couple small stores way out in the county, where it's 45 minutes just to get to the edge of town and they resell all their stuff. I know one has some ongoing issues with a certain hippie store Raider Toes, but I think that's not so much the reselling as the fact that the guy named his actual store a very similar name to the big chain store.

Anyways, at no point does it make sense to wander into a store and ask the first random employee a legal question and hope to get a usable answer.

[sstabeler]

At my old store we'd have a c-store owner (boyfriend of a coworker, so he probably used her employee discount on top of the sale) come through with full U-boats of soda when it was 10/$10. And of course this was after Corporate decided the cashiers were not to be trusted with the quantity key, so each of those marathon transactions required a supervisor

During our first "real" sale, the first-week item was an awesomely yummy brand of wafer cookies for half price/BOGO. As there was no limit (supposed to be 3 of any one item) coded into the registers, you had people trying to buy the entire shelf. After we figured this out, J and I tested and proved the theory by "rationing" our stock for one day (stock according to the sale limit by only allowing 3 of any one SKU on the shelf at a time).

Later GM revealed that in NYC, the company caught street vendors in Chinatown selling packs and cases of wafers for a ridiculous markup...they knew it came from us because not only was our shipper the only way to get most of the flavors we have, some crafty soul had devised a way to mark the packages/cases as belonging to that store. Yes, somehow they were able to buy sealed cases (typically that can only be done if a customer specifically pre-orders it).

It's not actually necessarily that difficult, provided you pay for the whole case. Think about it- if you were running a store and someone came in wanting to buy a sealed case's worth of something, it's less work to grab a sealed case from the stockroom to give the customer than giving the customer loose items, then needing to get a sealed case out of the stockroom anyway to restock the floor. Plus this way the customer needs to dispose of the packaging, not you.

Wait, melamine again? I remember a few years ago that got into pet food, and they executed their equivalent of an FDA Chief! And now in baby formula?

Baby formula's always been a problem for them- IIRC they also had problems with melamine in baby formula when they had the pet food problem. Fundamentally, it's because far too many places there are more about bulk than quantity.

[LadyofArc]

Wait, melamine again? I remember a few years ago that got into pet food, and they executed their equivalent of an FDA Chief! And now in baby formula?

IIRC, the issue was milk-based products in general, so yes, there's issues with trust on the baby formula front.

I live in an area with a high proportion of Chinese migrants and there are quite a few little shops that have popped up which are only selling baby formula to Chinese families. I suspect it's something like "family buys formula in shop and pays an extra postage fee, company sends it off to China."

[Dreamstalker]

It's not actually necessarily that difficult, provided you pay for the whole case.

If a customer wants a case of X and we have it we will absolutely sell it from the back, but our stock levels for some things are so sporadic that J would prefer that full-case customer orders be an actual separate request so he can keep track of things. We're not allowed to sell full cases of a sale item that has a limit imposed (the limit is 3 per transaction, the only way to sell cases is the quantity key).