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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

#371

Post by delfinom »

tzs wrote: post #365
cs702 wrote: post #258

> Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65. Bounty paper towels, shelf price $10.99, rang up at $15.50. Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Stouffer’s frozen meatloaf, Sprite and Pepsi, ibuprofen, Klondike Minis – shoppers were overpaying for all of them. Pedigree puppy food, listed at $12.25, rang up at $14.75. Surely, now that this made the news, there will be an investigation into the fraudulent…

>> Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65. The crazy thing is that even if it did ring up at the correct price it isn't a good deal. It's around $4.80-4.90 at Walmart and Target and others.

It's worse than that. In many cases the dollar stores now get skus of items made for them that are "cheaper" than a sku in Walmart but for a more expensive unit price than Walmart as they shrink the product.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#372

Post by jefftk »

> Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65. Bounty paper towels, shelf price $10.99, rang up at $15.50.

This very rarely happens in MA, because when it does the store has to give you the item for $10 off, including if that makes it free. And they have to post a sign at the register explaining the law, which means when you're invoking it all you need to do is point at the sign.

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/consumer-pricing-accuracy-...

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#373

Post by phil21 »

adrr wrote: post #42
hamdingers wrote: post #12

Even if they accurately charged shelf prices, these places are still a ripoff targeting the vulnerable. The list price is low but the per-unit price is astronomical compared to grocery store prices.

Have you ever been to a dollar store? Its much cheaper for the same items than a regular grocery store. Also not everyone needs a Costco sized tub of mayo. You test it yourself go by a standard sized candy bar at safeway/alberstons and then at a dollar store. Bottle of coke. Birthday card. Better yet compare the cost spices. Try to buy bay leaves at regular grocery store for under $5.

Spices might be the most universal ripoff anywhere in the US. You can get it so much cheaper either at ethnic stores, generic plastic bags at certain grocery stores in the ethnic aisles, or restaurant supply stores for spices that don’t have a short shelf life.

It’s so bizarre to me. At some point someone needs to do an in-depth expose on how this spice monopoly happened.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#374

Post by mindslight »

dmurray wrote: post #225
mindslight wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If another customer changed the price tag, that would be in the same category as if a person unaffiliated with the store said "I'll give you a deal on this item for $10", then pocketed the money while you walked out with the (still not yours) item. This doesn't really have any bearing on whether the owner of a store putting up a sign with a specific price for a specific item that a customer can directly take possessi…

Sure, but it's in the same category as the owner putting up a sign by mistake, or omitting to update a sign by mistake. Or more realistically, an employee of the owner putting up a sign even though the owner had instructed him to put up a different sign.

> or omitting to update a sign by mistake

No, in this case the shop is legitimately offering an item for sale, and then forgetting to change the price they are offering it at. It's quite disingenuous for a shop to put up signs, and then act like those numbers aren't legally binding, while the real prices are hidden away in a database somewhere. If they want to have their database be the authoritative copy pricing information, then they can just not put up price signs to begin with.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#375

Post by delfinom »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #342
andrew_lettuce wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a PE fund is at most a seven year timeline, and everybody knows it. There is absolutely no incentive to add value beyond the next sale, and often you only need to add the perception of value. To quote my CTO of a PE owned company: "we want to make it look like we're on the road to ", not actually accomplish it

> Because a PE fund is at most a seven year timeline Berkshire Hathaway is a PE fund with permanent capital. Broadly speaking, making generalisatios about PE is almost impossible because it's an asset class which is, essentially, all non-public business. Instead, it's more useful to think about which element private equity touches you're specifically complaining about: capitalism in general, financial transparency, l…

The problem with PE is only the hyper aggressive and generally terrible ones make the news.

The quiet ones that simply run business well, don't make the news.

There are PE firms that specialize in rescuing distressed companies with potential and turning them around. In many cases not firing anyone and holding onto the form they acquired for a long time.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#376

Post by jefftk »

hippo22 wrote: post #112
securingsincity wrote: post #98

Massachusetts has a quite prominent law against this. "When buying groceries—food and non-alcoholic beverages, pet food or supplies, disposable paper or plastic products, soap, household cleaners, laundry products, or light bulbs—you must be charged the lowest displayed price, whether on the sticker, scanner, website, or app. If the lowest price you saw for an item is $10 or less, and that lowest price is not what yo…

Unfortunately, this type of conflict can only be adjudicated by courts, which low-income people don't have the time and money for. You couldn't just walk out of the store with the items. You'd need to either: 1. Buy the items and sue. 2. Take the items without paying, likely get the police called on you, and defend yourself in criminal and civil court.

3. Point at the sign, which is posted at every register, and ask for your discount. If they say no you ask for the manager. I've done this several times, and never had an issue (but sometimes it takes a little while).

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#377

Post by nerdponx »

antonymoose wrote: post #334
pjc50 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very American: it's illegal, but everyone accepts both that the law will be enforced very unevenly, and that this kind of thing doesn't get solved by the regular political process. There's no political consumer complaints culture, it's seen as an individual matter. You couldn't get away with this for as long in the UK as a retailer. Either the CMA or Trading Standards would deal with it.

Keep in mind, this is also a state thing. I live on the NC/SC/GA border so I view news for all three daily. I routinely see this type of crime heavily policed and reported on in NC. Whereas my entire life is in coastal SC and never once in my life saw this repeated on or enforced.

In Massachusetts it's policed and enforced but the maximum fine per inspection is $5000 so it doesn't actually do anything (and it only applies to food anyway and stores are also allowed to exempt a fairly large number of items). https://www.mass.gov/info-details/accurate-scanning-and-pric...

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#378

Post by phil21 »

DangitBobby wrote: post #159
terminalshort wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's the problem with that? You get a discount for buying larger amounts of basically everything.

Dollar stores are crowding out grocery stores in areas that only have the clientele to support one grocery store. They sell only higher margin, long shelf-life shit food, whereas real grocery stores have to carry produce which cuts into margins considerably cause it goes bad. So it's easier for them to stay open. And they create food deserts there. They are a fucking scourge for small towns.

Sounds like the grocery stores were not serving their customer base well if they couldn’t compete with “overpriced” dollar stores.

Carrying cost of produce does not add up. If produce is going bad at that spoilage rate the store management fucked up and didn’t order the correct amount of product for the location. You can’t wish your way into a product mix.

Nothing was stopping grocery stores from identifying this need. Pretending your customer base is more affluent than it is sounds like a quick way to go out of business to me.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#379

Post by mindslight »

rtp4me wrote: post #234
mindslight wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"The people that would have the ability to push back"... And they can. Just bring it up to the cashier or managers attention, and voila, they adjust the price. Please let me know if you have had a different experience.

There's no "just". It takes resources to be scanning your receipt for discrepancies and/or running your own tally. And there are a few examples in the article referencing stores refusing to adjust prices, or of people noticing on their receipt that they were defrauded and the store refusing to reimburse them.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#380

Post by phil21 »

zdragnar wrote: post #138
burnt-resistor wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Dollar General is worse than a convenience store like 7-11, it's an expensive inconvenience store. And we need more local co-op grocery stores like Berkeley Bowl, the Davis Co-op, and ATX Wheatsville.

I have yet to visit a co-op that had cheaper than grocery store prices. Every single one focused on quality over cost savings.

This was not always the case. 30 years ago the customer base for bulk co-op places were lower-middle class/poor folks who had a decent amount of financial acumen. You'd go there with your own containers and buy staples by the pound. Or special order that 50lb bag of oats or flour for 1/4th the per-lb price of the local grocery store.

They slowly morphed into bougie health nut/conspiracy hippie stores during my lifetime. Closest thing I've found to what I remember them being are food service stores which tend to require a business tax ID to buy from.

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