This is Ridiculous, Corporate! pt. 3

[ralerin]

So I'm buying some night braces to help with my carpal tunnel from Aid of Rite's online store. They're 35% off, fantastic deal, better than what we have in store and we don't sell those braces anyway. So out of curiosity, I go and look to see if I could use my employee card too (because in store we are allowed to "piggyback" our discount on top of any discounts the store has, including weekly prices and coupons-we get the lower of the discounts, whether the 20% employee or the weekly sale price. If it's an employee appreciation day, we get 30% and it's the same thing, lower of the two discounts. If item, is say, $20 and it's got a $5 off coupon, we get the item for about $13-20% plus $5 coupon).

Lo and behold:

I can't use my discount card online, really?

Question
Can I use my discount card on the Online Store?

Answer
Unfortunately, discount cards cannot be used at the Online Store. You would need to visit a physical store location in order to take advantage of any available discounts with your card. However, there are many great promotions and discounts available to all online shoppers, so please be sure to check out what the Online Store has to offer!

That sort of sucks. Great that the discounts are available to everyone...not so great to employees like me who are used to giving the employee discount when we shop in the physical store. We are asked to.

[It's me]

Maybe you can get them special ordered?

[ralerin]

It's Me: Why? It's not an item we normally stock in store, and even if we did I would only get 20% off normally. 35% off at the online store is a better deal than normal. I'm just mad that I can't use my employee discount online for if I wanted to order, say, vitamins, or get credit for a prescription.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

You got my Spidey Sense tingling, so I went to the clearance swamp's online store to look up their employee discount policies.

I couldn't find anything on that, so I just went and put something in my cart I had no intention of buying, and went to checkout with no intention of buying.

I was able to enter the number on my employee discount card and have it applied. Sorry. You're getting bent over. But since your company appears to perpetually be in dire straits, that's probably why you're getting bent over.

[ralerin]

Irv: Which is why the discount card is both such a stupid and brilliant idea at the same time. It is suddenly stupid that hundreds of thousands of people are suddenly getting "employee" discounts of 20% on top of the thousands of us who work there, that's a huge, huge loss. However, not everyone takes the card bait, so the losses are mitigated somewhat by those who do pay the full price.

[Whiskey]

^I dont know about that. If I didn't get a discount at my job, I'd never eat there. I dont eat fast food really. They're making a profit because now I spend money there when I didnt before, just because I got a discount. If I have a choice, I'll go to my brand over another because i get a discount.

[blas]

The year before I started at the factory, for our yearly "gift", the employees got calculators that were made with motherboards made at our factory.

Oh so amazingly enough, they were all dead in no time.

If I were a customer, I'd never buy from my place. I know too much of what we let go and what just isn't right.

[Bunny the Veggie Slayer]

One of the good things about my employers is the staff discount card. 10% off inshore (20% in the run to Christmas). Plus standard loyalty bonus all customers get on their card (I got £60 this year, some co-workers got nearly £200. There's also loads of online only deals from 1/2 price cinema tickets to cheap entry to a number of theme parks and all sorts.

And that's on top of the usual yearly bonus most grocery chains in the Uk give staff.

[Naaman]

So I'm buying some night braces to help with my carpal tunnel from Aid of Rite's online store.

Not sure exactly what you're after but I found the cheapest place for a "half forearm, metal bar support" brace cheapest from an Amazon marketplace vendor. Another couple of quid for a tubular bandage to stop the Velcro rubbing and I was sorted.

Given that I have access to a lot of the supplier price lists and could find that it was being sold below trade price I can only assume that it was bankruptcy stock.

[terakhan]

My mom has the same thing. Employee discount card, but nowhere on the online site at all to enter it or apply it to a saved account on the online store.

You'd think more companies might actually WANT their employees to spend more with them, even if its not directly at the stores themselves.