Retail Apocalypse aka The E-Commerce Thread

how exactly can you get hundreds of dollars of meat rung up for 20 bucks? even if its cheap chuck steak its going to be more than 20 bucks if you buy more than 5 pounds.

Chukzombi said:

how exactly can you get hundreds of dollars of meat rung up for 20 bucks? even if its cheap chuck steak its going to be more than 20 bucks if you buy more than 5 pounds.

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Put it on the produce weigher and put it in as cabbage. Put it in the bag and that's that.

moonarchia said:

Put it on the produce weigher and put it in as cabbage. Put it in the bag and that's that.

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oh, ok thats just theft. its not even a gray area. the stores will fix it after they get fucked over long enough. the local supermarket deli dept by me was giving me much more roast beef than i was paying for. i would ask for a half pound and the dumb shit would slice off a pound and because he made a mistake he didnt want to charge double and he couldnt put the other half pound away because it would get funny and nobody would want it anyway. after this happened once i figured it was an honest mistake and i ended up using the extra half pound of roast beef to make open face roast beef sammies for dinner that night.

i go back to the butcher the next week. order a half pound of roast beef. take it home and sure enough another extra half pound of roast beef. i dunno wtf was going on. this happened for about two months and i just threw away all the extra roast beef because i cant eat a whole pound of roast beef in my lunch every week. then one day it stopped. the chinese owner of the supermarket must have noticed their produce was disappearing at an alarming rate and the numbers didnt add up. then this dumb shit started giving me exact amount of the roast beef and when they cut too much it would reflect in the price. people need to do their jobs properly and professionally.

Curious how much in retail stuff just walks out the front door. I realise sales people can't tackle them or go after them, but a few places I've been the response has been "so what? not coming out of your pocket". Economics in school nowdays I guess. At a Lowes once 3 Mexicans were working as a team and distracting the sales person on the contractor exit. They were ahead of me and they took out 3 buggy fulls of copper wiring. I'm sure it wasn't exactly cheap and probably a good portion of it made it right to the recycler for pennies on the dollar. I told the lady and she was like "yeah they do it all the time". I tracked down the contract area manager and he was like "when we run inventory we'll see it and order more". Shit like that really rubs me the wrong way. Like I said, don't expect them to run after them but with attitudes like that I'm sure it grows like wildfire. Police station/HQ basically in the same parking lot on one side and a town of 30k. Not excactly like they walked out and escaped into a huge metropolis.

Seen it happen many a time. 25 years ago I knew a guy who owned a commercial painting company. He was telling me at some department store they were painting and about all the places people sit behind two way mirrors. Like out on the floor was an octagon shaped column with mirrors all the way around. Real convenient to look at the clothes. Guy sat inside that deal all day. He said he talked to one of them, sounded kind of cool at first. Then some fat ass would come up to the mirror and bend over and stuff. I can imagine nowdays it would be 100x worse.

Never been a big fan of the mega retail. Going back forever, when it was Kmart, Howard Brothers and such were about it. Then walmart. Oddly enough in the poorest state in the country now I get really good service. The best checker is a flaming black guy oddly enough. He's really young but he told me once, "Amazes me checkers can't tell if someone wants to chat, or just wants to get their shit and go". I'm a big fan of the get their shit and go. Not a big fan of getting behind people who have to catch up on the weather and their 3rd cousin removed with strangers. The self checkout is faster, but a lot of stuff won't go thru the self checkout. Most of the stuff in the garden center, anything like an aim and flame won't go thru - at least here. A lot of stuff from the sporting goods department won't go either. Guess it depends on where you live. Also paint and spray paint won't go. So unless I'm buying the most run of the mills stuff quicker to use a regular check out, than get in the self checkout line and then they have to find someone to run it thru the self check out for you.

Most places factor theft into their pricing these days. They still record everything on camera so they can get the cops involved when big stuff gets taken, but there's probably also a lower limit where it costs more to go after them than to just shrug it off.

moonarchia said:

Most places factor theft into their pricing these days. They still record everything on camera so they can get the cops involved when big stuff gets taken, but there's probably also a lower limit where it costs more to go after them than to just shrug it off.

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Couple carts worth of copper wire in the right gauge is easily a couple thousand dollars of stuff. Just aggravating knowing about it. Dad was in rotary with the manager there and he said they don't really pursue anything with the cops unless it causes a scene on site. I'm sure that spread thru wildfire thru certain communities that the store was open. By factor in means other customers are paying for it.

The one time I worked retail in high school they had a policy of stopping anyone and everyone and call the cops if you were caught stealing 50 cents worth of stuff. This was an auto parts store. They would have the cops come (from next door) if you tried to screw them out of something like return a used starter and claim it was new. It really cut down on the riff raff and did well with the more jobber/entusiast crowd. The owner had 7 stores and he was doing pretty well in the pre AutoZone on every corner market. I remember a guy coming in and trying to screw us out of a battery. He went out and opened his hood and came back in and tried it again. The manager finally told him to pound sand and leave the premises now. Guy walked outside and came back in "THEY STOLE MY BATTERY" while his hood was open. Oh the irony. I really wish we had a camera going. It was priceless. Still get a chuckled out of it 30 years later.

I like this self-checkout we have here. You get a little handheld barcode reader as you go into the store and scan everything as you put it in your bag. Then for the checkout you just put your scanner back and swipe the pin card. Nothing to scan at the checkout stand so it takes 10 seconds max.

The store chain is owned by Ahold/Delhaize who also own Food Lion in the US so it might show up there.

Furry said:

Yea, I'd fucking love to see them try that shit around here.

How often do you think people get arrested and convicted for fucking around with these honor systems? Ring all your meat up as cabbage in a super liberal are? Do your clicks and dance for a liberal judge and shell tap her fingernails against the gavel and bzzt you out with a dismissal.

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They do spot checks to see if you're not stealing shit.

I worked for walmart canadian side for six years. Theft and wages are your biggest battles. At my store one year we experienced close to 1m in shrinkage. However it was a central 100m walmart anyway so whats 1m in shrink? Nothing in the grand scheme. Here in canada we'll chase you across the parking lot and tackle you. We'll get it way with it too. Yes, ive seen this happen. Good times.

Edit; I should obviously note that 1m means something to someone. A walmart's store manager yearly bonus is based on sales, budget vs actual use vs expected, etc.

Scanning meat as cabbage is crazy, that actually happens?

I once scanned my honeycrisp apples as granny smith because I couldn't find the honeycrisp, felt a little guilty lol.

i'm actually tempted to try it out to see if it works, but my (sub) white privilege would get me arrested.