Trouble With Comparisons at the Store

[storm5510]

Those two shelf labels are Walmart. I worked at the local store for three years before I retired. The only thing a customer is expected to understand is the price. The UPC is readable by an MC40 hand scanner which indicates a shelf location and additional inventory quantity in storage. I used one daily. What appears on the screen is cryptic, like the shelf label. It took me a while to pick out what I needed to know.

There are small groups of workers in stores every day replacing labels, mostly for price changes. They like shuffling things around. Each item moved requires a new shelf label. To me, it seemed like a self-defeating process. Their inventories are never correct. Case in point: The day before Thanksgiving in 2015, I worked at stocking the canned goods. Just a single aisle. A long section of shelving for sweet potatoes was bare. I took the MC40 I had and requested it show the total inventory on hand. It said zero. Not trusting what it said, I decided to go do a visual check of the grocery storage area. I found a full pallet high up on a rack. Over 200 cans. I reported it, but I might as well have been talking to a cigar store Indian.

This is how good their inventory control works. Why? Nobody cares.

[retina]

It's just someone bungling the values in the entry fields.

Should be 2.98/6 = 49.7c/oz, and 10.98/25 = 43.9c/oz. So the larger size is lower cost per unit.

It would be prudent to check the computations yourself if the staff there are prone to such basic mistakes.

[EdH]

Originally Posted by retina

It's just someone bungling the values in the entry fields.

Should be 2.98/6 = 49.7c/oz, and 10.98/25 = 43.9c/oz. So the larger size is lower cost per unit.

It would be prudent to check the computations yourself if the staff there are prone to such basic mistakes.

This is why I'm in possession of the 25 ounce bag rather then the 6 ounce can. I agree with Dr. S. about the need to check. I often find the discrepancies appear to be a manner to cloud the fact that the smaller item is a better deal. It's time for a story:

This same Walmart had two packages of a product that I would buy and go through the same routine each time. The prices on the shelf showed the smaller package at a smaller than half price of the larger, while this package was exactly half the size of the larger. Let's use the example of 3.25 for the smaller and 6.75 for the larger - two of the smaller obviously a better value, so I would collect two. At the checkout, the item would ring up for an amount above the half way point for the larger. I would then point out the discrepancy and go through getting the correct change. This actually went on for months. Sometimes I'd skip buying the item all together rather than go through the extra hassle.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by EdH

The 6Z and 25Z may only be coincidental, but the actual product containers stated 6 ounces and 25 ounces, respectively. Further, the UPC for the 25 ounce product returns the following when researched:

Unit price (per ounce) used to mean the total cost divided by the number of units (ounces). Apparently, that is no longer the case.

In view of the weight in ounces on both packages agreeing with the "Z" numbers, I'd say that's no coincidence. The package information had better be correct!

The shelf tag unit prices in the picture are just plain wrong. Unit price does mean total divided by number of units. I agree with retina, someone entered the wrong data somewhere. Those unit prices could even be for some entirely different product.

Sometimes I check whether the bar code on the shelf tag matches the bar code on the package. Sometimes they don't match. This can be due to items being stocked in the wrong place, or shoppers changing their minds and putting items back in the wrong place, or an item being replaced by a "successor" product, or maybe some other reason.

Some stores have scanners out in the aisles so shoppers can check what price is in the system for a given item. That's what will be rung up at checkout.

If a shelf tag item price is wrong, most stores give (or used to give) that item for free to the vigilant shopper who points it out, unless the item is past its sell date (in which case they take it so they can return it to the vendor).

One exception to this practice is out-of-date shelf tags for sale items. The sale dates are printed on the tags. Caveat emptor!

[rogue]

I often see people complain (especially grocery) about price differences between what they see on the shelf and how the scanner shows at check-out.

I wonder how often the stores know about these discrepancies, but hedge their bets that the consumer won't notice.

But considering that stores carry many thousands of items and the price changes on dozens, if not hundreds of those items every day, it is pretty easy to see how so many mistakes can be made.

What they should do is have a mobile app so that when they change the price at the shelf that they can use that app to change it in the POS system used at check-out immediately. In fact the mobile app could trigger the price change upon printing of the new label attached to the shelf. But I suppose that would be too obvious a solution. The worst case is that someone pulls from the shelf and the price changes before they check out, but at least at check-out they could explain the process. The main challenge is that some SKUs in the store could be located in multiple places (end caps, checkout lanes, special floor displays). That can make it more challenging.

[storm5510]

Every year in May at the local store, an independent contractor group will come in and do a complete inventory of everything in the building. The last year I worked, there was a $53,000 difference between what the computers said they had versus what they actually had. Walmart calls this "shrink." The two highest loss areas were cosmetics and sporting goods. 53K is a lot of lipstick and purple worms.

[a1call]

Originally Posted by rogue

I often see people complain (especially grocery) about price differences between what they see on the shelf and how the scanner shows at check-out.

I wonder how often the stores know about these discrepancies, but hedge their bets that the consumer won't notice.

But considering that stores carry many thousands of items and the price changes on dozens, if not hundreds of those items every day, it is pretty easy to see how so many mistakes can be made.

What they should do is have a mobile app so that when they change the price at the shelf that they can use that app to change it in the POS system used at check-out immediately. In fact the mobile app could trigger the price change upon printing of the new label attached to the shelf. But I suppose that would be too obvious a solution. The worst case is that someone pulls from the shelf and the price changes before they check out, but at least at check-out they could explain the process. The main challenge is that some SKUs in the store could be located in multiple places (end caps, checkout lanes, special floor displays). That can make it more challenging.

Around here you get $10 discount for any price error.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/pri...free-1.6263904

Of course I have the philosophy of never looking at the prices when I shop since I charge everything (I did even when cash was still in use). I figure I will always be poor (anyways), but will live longer with less aggravation.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by rogue

I often see people complain (especially grocery) about price differences between what they see on the shelf and how the scanner shows at check-out.

I wonder how often the stores know about these discrepancies, but hedge their bets that the consumer won't notice.

But considering that stores carry many thousands of items and the price changes on dozens, if not hundreds of those items every day, it is pretty easy to see how so many mistakes can be made.

What they should do is have a mobile app so that when they change the price at the shelf that they can use that app to change it in the POS system used at check-out immediately. In fact the mobile app could trigger the price change upon printing of the new label attached to the shelf. But I suppose that would be too obvious a solution. The worst case is that someone pulls from the shelf and the price changes before they check out, but at least at check-out they could explain the process. The main challenge is that some SKUs in the store could be located in multiple places (end caps, checkout lanes, special floor displays). That can make it more challenging.

That may be the case where you live out in the sticks.

Here in La Palma a fair few stores have LCD shelf-tags which can be updated electronically from a central database.

Of course, that doesn't prevent people putting wrong numbers into the database.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by xilman

Of course, that doesn't prevent people putting wrong numbers into the database.

One /might/ presume that such unauthorized access might be watched for...

The presumption is much like an assumption. It's someone else's problem.

I enjoy working with you all.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by chalsall

One /might/ presume that such unauthorized access might be watched for...

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.