Read the @#$%% sign!

[One-Fang]

After re-reading the OP I'm wondering if it's a case of a sign saying "Spend $100 get 20% off" and the SC buying an $80 pair of pants and expecting to get 20% off that, cos somewhere, on a sign, next to some other words that don't really mean anything, the phrase "get 20% off" was used.

Do I win a cookie?

[Catwoman2965]

I can see where the SCs thought it was additional X% off the marked price. Some stores are confusing about whether items advertised as "X% off" are off the marked price, or already marked down. Yes, I realise this is "up to" so it has to be, but the ones that just read the big print - they're gonna ask.

I totally don't get the second one though. Spend xx$ and get x% off your total purchase, and a one-item purchase doesn't qualify? I'm confused.

So let's say it's spend $100, get 10% off your total purchase. I buy items totalling $99.99, no discount. I buy items totalling $100.00, I pay $90. Right?

So a single $100 item wouldn't come up as $90? Why not? What difference does it make if there are multiple items or one?

That is correct; its x% off your total purchase...IF you spend a minimum of $100...so yes, if your items total 99.99, there is no discount. If they total $100 exactly, you get the % off, and in your example, you pay $90. It doesn't matter if its one item, or multiple items, as long as your total is $100 or more. We have some items that are over $100, so a customer could buy just that one item, and get the discount, or buy several lesser priced items, and get it as well.

Like i said above, we have to manually take the discount; we ring it all up, total it up, and then take the discount. Not the most efficient way, but its the way our systems are set up.

[Samaliel]

OH, I think I got it ! The SC thought the X% off discount was available for any purchase, i.e. totally missed the part that said "spend at least $XX" ?

[Catwoman2965]

OH, I think I got it ! The SC thought the X% off discount was available for any purchase, i.e. totally missed the part that said "spend at least $XX" ?

Exactly! and then get pissy when you point out - nicely, THEIR error! Um, not my fault you only see what you want to see!

[Pixagi]

Ugh, that reminds me of when I used to work at the supermarket. For some reason, everytime we had a sale on Entenmann's stuff, no matter how big the lettering for what product exactly was on sale, people decided that ALL Entenmann's stuff was on sale.

[Rivulatus]

Customers will only see the part they want to see. Last Saturday I had 3 completely separate instances of customers get cranky when they didn't get 50% off the computers they were buying. They all insisted that we were advertising 50% off storewide. No, we most definitely were not.

The 1st one argued that he'd seen it on TV - I knew we had no such ad. He ended up saying he was going to report us to consumer affairs for false advertising. I told him that if he went home, videotaped the ad that said we were doing 50% off storewide, and brought it in, I'd give him the laptop for free. Needless to say, he hasn't been in since.

The 2nd one said we had it on a big poster outside our shop. I asked him to show me the poster. Sure enough, there was a poster. But it was on the front of the neighbouring shop in our mall (They are the major tenant of the shopping mall, and the mall is named after them, so they probably had the same poster out the front as well). It had the name of the neighbouring shop on it, and it said in big bold lettering "50% OFF ALL ELECTRIC BLANKETS. TODAY ONLY". He backed down when I showed him A) it wasn't on our store, B) the other business name on top, and C) it specified electric blankets.

For the 3rd I was now fore-warned, "I didn't get my 50% off" "We are not offering 50% off" "Yes you are" "no, XXXX are offering 50% off electric blankets" "oh".

Just amazing though that an advertisement that is pretty much self explanatory could cause 3 people to think it applied not only for different products, but also for a completely different store.

[Ironclad Alibi]

http://www.dvguru.com/2006/10/03/the-dvd-rewinder/

That's just a review. You can buy one at Stupidiotic. If you watch DVDs on your computer, you can download a free software program to rewind your DVD, CD/DVD Rewinder Pro 1.0.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I have to deal with this a lot at my job.

Unlike a lot of places, our store posts the signs with prices and whatnot ABOVE the items, not below them. Our signs even have arrows that point DOWN at the items in question.

A lot of times, the problem will be the customer read the sign for the item on the shelf below, and I'll have to cautiously ask, "Was this on the sign ABOVE the item?" "No." "Yeah, that was the wrong sign."

Unless they were getting something from the clothing department. Ooooh, how I hate our clothing department. Without fail, within minutes of our opening the doors, the clothing dept. is a mess, and nothing is under the right sign.

This is because people do what I like to call the "volcano method" of shopping:
Step 1: Reach to the bottom of the stack of clothing.
Step 2: Pull the bottom of the stack upward, spilling the adjacent stacks all over the damn place.
Step 3: Walk away.

Often times the problem for clothing price "discrepancies" will be the customer saw a sign for the same brand, but a different item.

Whatever. I @#$%ing hate people who don't read the whole damn sign, too.

[Seshat]

I think that one of the unwriten rules that all Sucky Customers live by is "The bigger the sign, the more I will ignore it."

Actually, there is a tendency for people to ignore signs that look like advertising: because we get so much of it these days, we focus on what's important to us and ignore the extraneous information.

Unfortunately, sometimes that 'extraneous information' is actually important.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

LOL, I did that to my wife after we got our first DVD player. We had just watched a movie, and she got up to eject the disc. I told her, "Don't forget to rewind it!"

She actually looked for a rewind button, and then realizing she'd just been had, proceeded to cuss me out.

I bet somewhere in that conversation she used the word "asshole" at least twice, right?