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Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

theguardian.com

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Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#11

Post by morkalork »

1123581321 wrote: post #4

This is poor behavior by the stores. The solution will be conversion to eink shelf labels that sync like registers do. Realistically, the fines will not be increased to the point where increasing store staffing and training is cheaper. I don’t know where Dollar General is in this process, but many other c-stores and grocery stores have implemented digital labels. Digital labels come with the temptation to experiment…

I am convinced the wallmarts in Canada are doing dynamic with the eink price tags. I was in the same location twice in a week to pick up snacks for a gathering and the price of chips were 50% more on the Friday vs earlier in the week.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#13

Post by paulcole »

> North Carolina law caps penalties at $5,000 per inspection, offering retailers little incentive to fix the problem. “Sometimes it is cheaper to pay the fines,” said Chad Parker, who runs the agency’s weights-and-measures program.

Well, there’s your problem.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#14

Post by estimator7292 »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #2

23% of items are rung up at a higher amount at the register than what it says on the shelf, yet North Carolina law caps penalties at $5,000 per inspection, offering retailers little incentive to fix the problem. In other words, regulatory capture at its finest, over the backs of the poorest in the country.

[flagged]

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#15

Post by paulcole »

iinnPP wrote: post #6

This happens at Walmart Canada all the time. The policy there is to slash 10$ off shelf price (or free for anything 10 or less). Since COVID, Walmart has stopped having immediate fixes of the problem. Since 2020, I have accumulated about $1200 in free merchandise using the above. Almost always food.

Publix in the southeast US will give you anything that rings up wrong for free. I shopped there for 20+ years and only remember getting a handful of things free.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#18

Post by aimor »

firefax wrote: post #10

I had a clerk flip out on me a while back at a Dollar Tree because I wanted a charge for a dollar -- it rang up as 1.25. They rolled their eyes and told me not everything is a dollar, and I maintained that absent pricing stickers indicating otherwise, the default is a dollar. When I pointed out another way to look at it is it's a twenty five percent price discrepancy, someone came out of an office and literally screa…

"the default is a dollar"

There is no default price.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#19

Post by jrmg »

modzu wrote: post #8

what's the point of this hit piece? isnt that frying pan with a sticker price of $10 and rung up at $12 still $50 anywhere else?

I don’t think this is true. Even if pricing in the shelves is accurate, in my experience Dollar General is typically a little more expensive than a normal mid-range supermarket (or e.g. Amazon) for most things.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#20

Post by mindslight »

tokai wrote: post #5
nlh wrote: post #3

“In one court case in Ohio, Dollar General’s lawyers argued that “it is virtually impossible for a retailer to match shelf pricing and scanned pricing 100% of the time for all items. Perfection in this regard is neither plausible nor expected under the law.”” Sorry—-what? Isn’t that one of the fundamental basic jobs to be done and expectations of a retailer? You put physical things on display for sale, you mark price…

Just make the sticker price legally binding and this issue would be solved with almost perfect precision.

The sticker price is legally binding - it constitutes an offer, and the cash register surreptitiously charging a higher price from what the customer has agreed to constitutes fraud. The problem is that asserting your rights takes time, resources, and energy that people shopping at these stores generally do not have. The people that would have the ability to push back instead just use their resources to move on and shop somewhere else that isn't immediately abusing them.
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