No Wonder Walmart’s Sales Have Gone Down This Year…

@cherokeepatti

And some checkers feel a need to administer economic equity :)

10+ years ago we were shopping at one of the Walmart super-stores and "oh look! Rainier Cherries!!!"

Rainier Cherries always cost a king's ransom, so if it's been a year since you last enjoyed Rainier Cherries you don't look at the price. You just put them in the shopping cart and buy them.

But then when we checked out and the checker punched in the code, the price popped up: $6.95 a pound. The checker shook her head, said something to the effect: "That's too much, no one should have to pay that much for cherries."

She then voided it and reentered the cherries as "grapes", $1.29 a pound, smiled, and continued checking us out without losing a stroke.

So I carried that "now I owe Walmart at least $6" guilt for years : (

About 8 years later, I almost had that chance to pay them back when they charged like $24 for a 6-pack of tiny beer (the 7 oz size, something not typically carried at Walmart, or most grocery stores). After 20 minutes of waiting to find the store manager they discovered that the price stored in their computer was wrong. The checker had no idea what a 6-pack should have cost, so it was a store managers issue. I wanted to tell her to just give me $12 back and we'd be even. $24 minus about #6 for what the beer should have cost, minus about $6 for the cherries. But, the manager wasn't able to change the computer stored price for the beer without another manager's permission, and they needed that to officially run the price change through the system, so she gave me a full refund of the $24 and told me to keep the beer. So now I have a mental IOU to Walmart for about $12.

@Heartlander There was a large local grocery store that had a big bulk bin of pistachio nuts. They were selling for $5 a pound everywhere else but someone I knew bought some and they rung up about a $1 a pound. He went back at least once a week and got more, had the stored in his freezer. To the store a year to realize they had underpriced them. Raised the price to $6 a pound.

@cherokeepatti I understand. I was once systems manager for an electronics company and it was almost impossible to manage the pricing of some items. Bulk consumables probably fit in that category. Like the store may buy them from different suppliers where they are measured differently, and may also sell them in a variety of arrangements. In the electronics business one vendor may sell wire by the pound, and another would sell it by the 200 foot spool, and yet another by the foot. Then our company would repackage it into smaller spools, and even then the confusion over 1 each 10 foot spool or 10 feet. So in the confusion it was easy to pay $100 for something and then sell it for $1 :)

@SheCallsMeCrushDaddy I didn’t know there were so many ways to steal from stores till I worked as a greeter at Walmart. I couldn’t have imagined all that.

@cherokeepatti they dont even have to be creative or shrewd now. just put it in the cart and wheel it out. if somebody stops them, tell em to screw off, they wont do a thing. thats one of the many reasons prices are high. gotta make up for all the shit thats stolen. people will say that the stuff is ensured, yeah, thats true. but with so many loss claims, what kind of premiums are the businesses paying....... really high ones. and who does that cost in the end........ people who shop there.

@SheCallsMeCrushDaddy I grabbed so many carts filled with I bagged merchandise before they got out of the store with it. Would be pushing stray carts into the line inside the store entrance and hear a cart coming through at a fast clip and turn around and stop it and ask for a receipt. They would always say their wife or girlfriend had the re wilt and they were in the garden center or elsewhere making a last minute purchase. Would tell them go get her and the receipt and bring it to me and you can take the cart. They’d act like they were going back inside and go out the other door and leave.

@4meAndyou The Battery Daddy that they had for sale in the store only held 150 batteries and it was about $8 more than the one I bought that holds 180 batteries.

@cherokeepatti thats true, they all do it, it's kinda like a fad.

@Virgo79 Walmart makes idiotic decisions in regard to merchandise they’ll discontinue. 11 years ago they cut out the fabric departments and other things and found out the hard way that they shouldn’t stop selling popular merchandise. I think they don’t care about their customer base. They ended up putting the fabric departments back although some are just precut fabrics which doesn’t make sense since you need various lengths for different patterns.

@cherokeepatti i agree.

@akindheart not lately. Sometimes it slows down before Christmas here. Students taking finals this week and leaving when they are finished is part of the reason.

@Tminus6453 Yeah that’s a big part of their problem too. And raising prices to make up for those lost sales ain’t gonna cut it either. They want to blame shoplifters for closing stores rather than admitting their heads are up their butts on store policies etc. Online sales doesn’t involve shoplifters.Too many self checks is another reason. And figuring out they are trying to nickel and dime consumers by shorting product weights i packages of things like pasta, I know that one for a fact because I have weighed them after getting home. A lady on another website posted about her experience with it.

@LunarOrbit Good way to store batteries and have them in one place. I loaded it up yesterday. It is the right size to put in the storage bench next to the front door.