But it's SIMPLE MATH!!

[wolfie]

You see, we'd run weekend sales and the cool thing about those was that any special discounts given during those sales could be added on top of already discounted merchandise. This means you could say, get an additional 20% off something that was already 25% off.

I'm sure you can guess where this is going.

Guy comes up with a $40 item that was previously 20% off and as part of the weekend sale is additional 30% off.

Manager L comes over, goes over the same thing I did with the guy THREE MORE times while a line builds behind him, to no avail.

Regretfully L eventually decided to eat the $2.40 simply because the guy was getting extremely angry and the other customers were getting impatient. Not what I would have done but whatever.

This wasn't an isolated incident. I got this ALL the time with these kinds of sales.

Management fail on eating the $2.40 - that just trains the customer to push for unwarranted discounts. When the customer didn't understand after the manager's first time explaining what you had already told the guy, manager should have refused the sale.

[Peppergirl]

Management fail on eating the $2.40 - that just trains the customer to push for unwarranted discounts. When the customer didn't understand after the manager's first time explaining what you had already told the guy, manager should have refused the sale.

Agreed. This is the crux of the issue in most of the stories I see here and elsewhere.

We are training customers to behave badly by showing them that if they throw a big enough hissy fit, they will give in just to get rid of them, thereby undermining their employees in the process.

[Pagan]

I admit I suck at math (especially calculating percents), but even I know that's not how those discounts work.

Same here. I'm a math moron. I've been known to add 2+2 and get five, even counting on my fingers!

There's a reason I carry a calculator with me.

[Sandiercy]

I live in Vancouver and even if he got it for $20, he would wind up paying $22.40 because of sales tax. Yes, it sucks up here, we have 12% tax :'(

[Chromatix]

The thing to remember is that there are two distinct kinds of discount - one proportional and one incremental. If you do all the proportional ones first (the percentages) and all the incremental ones last (the money off), then the customer always gets the greatest benefit (which is usually what they want).

I call percentage discounts proportional because they involve multiplying by some factor. That factor is 1.0 - (percentage / 100), so a 25% discount means multiplying by 0.75. If you can subtract from 100 quickly - which is also useful for making change - then it's very easy to work out the correct ratio. Multiplications are commutative, so it doesn't matter what order you do them in as long as no other operations are involved in between. You should apply all of these factors without rounding, then round afterwards.

Incremental discounts are the ones where the coupon contributes some value towards the total. Or, in other words, the coupon replaces cash, which is why it should be counted after the proportional discounts. In Finland, the single most common instance of this type of coupon is the lunch voucher, which is often used to pay for the entire meal in one go - it's a common employment perk, because it is paid for out of pre-tax salary. So if the coupon(s) cover the entire cost, the goods are paid for and there is no change to give. If not, then subtract the coupons' value from the total and process payment as normal for the remainder.

If you need to add sales tax, then that's another proportional factor. In this case the factor is 1.0 PLUS (percentage / 100). However, whether you do this before or after the incremental discounts might depend on local rules. If before, then you can factor it in right at the beginning before any discounts are applied (as VAT is), because the proportional discounts also discount the tax.

One final type of coupon is one that adjusts the price of a single item. These obviously apply while building up the total, whereas the above discussion applies after the total is arrived at.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Management fail on eating the $2.40 - that just trains the customer to push for unwarranted discounts. When the customer didn't understand after the manager's first time explaining what you had already told the guy, manager should have refused the sale.

I fully agree but the manager justified it with the excuses that A) it's only a small amount and B) we had a bunch of other customers waiting to be helped.

[MoonCat]

I have always been extremely good at math, so I will try to explain the whole thing to the guy upset guy in the OP so that he can understand it.

Sir, two plus two equals you're a raging fucking asshole.

Here endeth the lesson.

I have to say that this kind of calculation would have made my math classes a lot more entertaining.

[Mel]

The thing to remember is that there are two distinct kinds of discount - one proportional and one incremental. If you do all the proportional ones first (the percentages) and all the incremental ones last (the money off), then the customer always gets the greatest benefit (which is usually what they want).

We're required to do the opposite at my store.

I've had people confuse our "additional percentage" discounts like in the OP, but thankfully, when I explain that the additional discount applied to the price that is scanned originally (the already reduced price), they normally understand. And also, I'm the assistant manager, so they normally won't argue with me (I know that doesn't stop everyone though).

[wolfie]

We are training customers to behave badly by showing them that if they throw a big enough hissy fit, they will give in just to get rid of them, thereby undermining their employees in the process.

Whereas we should be training them that if they throw a big enough hissy fit, we'll call security just to get rid of them.