Stupid M&S policy. AIBU?

[NCforthisthread18]

Apples and grapes, £2.90 each or 2 for £4.

The grapes had a yellow sticker having been reduced to £2.05 as sell by date was today.

Got to the checkout and it came to £4.95. I queried this and pointed out that had the grapes been full price I would have got both items for £4.

Checkout person got quite aggressive and said it wasn’t possible to get them as a deal. So I said ok, and walked away. He continued to practically shout after me “it’s not possible!”

AIBU to think this is a ridiculous policy?

The sensible thing for shops to do would be to ensure all marked down food is cheaper than any offers, then there wouldn't be an issue with not applying them on reduced items, e.g. mark the grapes down to £1.90

The thing is, the supermarkets used to use loads over this sort of thing. About 10 years ago Tesco had three packs of meat for £8, with each item being priced at around £4. So a sort of 3 for 2. The computer had been programmed to recognise when three of the qualifying products were scanned, and to automatically take £4 off the bill. This even worked if the items were reduced. So you picked up 3 of the packs reduced to £2 instead of £4, pay £6 in total and the till takes £4 off.

That's not how it was intended to work so the supermarkets stopped this happening. It is frustrating in situations like the OP's but it's really only an issue when items are only reduced a small amount.

Sounds more of a personnel problem than a policy problem.

And agree about a lot of offers not being applied at the tills. It tends to happen at their shabbier stores which are probably being run into the ground, so time isn't being taken to properly scan and tag items as they fill the shelves. The smarter stores seem to be a lot better at labelling and dealing with problems where they do arise.

Same in my local Tesco
Dimwit policy

he could have just scanned the original barcode. Till staff are beset by a raft of rules allowing them zero discretion. Depending on the company, an infringement such as "just scanning the original barcode" could lead to a disciplinary and a warning. Just be mindful of the rule now you know it, and talk to a manager if you want them to bend the rule for you.

He was wrong, obviously and M&S top bods will cringe reading this - which they will.

Assuming M&S top bods are scanning MN threads is showing some delusions of grandeur, it is not uncommon for reduced items to be excluded from promotions.

She could have just bought an in date item that was included in the meal deal, if that item was not available then sometimes its sensible to suck it up and not then complain down the chain about being a "race to the bottom" which the OP has done

I kind of had this in WHSmith at an airport.

Meal deal £3.99. I just wanted the sandwich and drink so presumed it would also be £3.99. It comes up as £5.24. I query it and am told, yes, I have to add a chocolate bar or crisps that I don’t want, to make it cost less.

You’d think the system would be a bit cleverer.

I wasn’t that hungry. I asked the woman on the till if she wanted a bar of chocolate.

At MandS yellow lables used to work with the 2 for etc discounts but it changed about 6 years ago.

Thanks for the lesson MereDintofPandiculation. I bow to your superior knowledge of till practice. Funnily, I very much doubt that he would have been disciplined and warned if he’d used common sense and summoned his manager himself. Surely that also part of his customer care training?

I used to work at Tesco. We regularly had situations where this happened and (back then) always honoured the offer even when we ended up owing the customer money! So if for example someone bought two reduced items for 25p and the offer was buy two and get £1.00 off, they would be charged 50p for the two items, the £1.00 off would be applied and they would get 50p change. People found this incredibly confusing and would often try to refuse the change but then the cashiers till would be out so we had to insist they take it.

I disagree that M&S staff give good customer service, that used to be the case but nowadays they seem to be overstretched, undertrained and generally demotivated. OTH on the rare occasions I have had to interact with Primark staff I have been very impressed. Perhaps because they are often young and enthusiastic.

Take the yellow sticker off. Then you can get the deal

I agree with you, also I think the grapes should have been reduced to less than £2 to encourage people to buy the food going out of date rather than just doing the 2 for £4 offer with the fresher stuff. This is why so much food gets wasted.

YANBU!!! These stickers are, I assume "end of day" markdowns? So, why TF should you pay MORE for the item than normal items?

Co-op does something like this: for instance £3.00 each or 2 for £5.00, but the end-of-day markdown is, say, £2.49 each? So, you could get two fresh items for £5.00 or two about-to-expire items for £4.98? Hmmmm, what should I pick?....

Stupid shops think we can't do maths....

Sainsburys used to add the mark-down to the existing deal. I liked that. :D

Not unreasonable. You're not trying to combine two offers, you're merely pointing out a flaw in their pricing structure.
The assistant couldn't do anything about it because they (presumably) had no authority to make an executive decision).

Here's another example:

Go to McD's and order a Big Mac, Fries and Coffee (a meal). It'll cost about a fiver.

Buy the coffee and get a receipt (and the receipt will offer Big Mac and Fries for 1.99 as a special voucher) - THEN order the Big Mac and Fries and you'll get the whole bundle for about 3.50 :-)

@Loonoon - that happened to my dh once. He’d gone into Tesco to pick me up a bunch of flowers, and found some in the reduced section, so he bought three bunches. When he got to the checkout, they rang up at -2p - it turned out they’d been in a ‘buy two, get third free’ promotion, and the flowers had been rung up at the reduced price, but had had the full price taken off.

They offered him the flowers and the 2p - he didn’t take the money - and asked if they could keep the receipt for the staff room notice board.

I nearly always shop at M&S because it;s nearest to me but every time I am so disappointed by their apples. Almost every packet has an apple with a hole in or something. And the grapes a bit dodgy these days too. What happened, M&S?!

You’d think the system would be a bit cleverer.

It's a very defined system, being "cleavere" offers loads of variables into a streamlined system and, lets be honest the majority of the population run on a a "computer says no" scenario.

Just buy the chocolate bar and photo it at some location and post on reddit along with the first class tickets etc, it will get taken by some grateful recipient and you will have saved some money

The sensible thing for shops to do would be to ensure all marked down food is cheaper than any offers, then there wouldn't be an issue with not applying them on reduced items, e.g. mark the grapes down to £1.90

^this. It makes me so mad when an item that is at its use by date is reduced by just a few pence. I usually end up buying the full priced item because I feel its better value for money. If they really felt strongly about food and plastic being wasted they would make proper reductions so that customers actually save money!

Justanotherlurker she has already said there was no full priced item left.

That sounds like a silly policy. It should be 2/£4 or the combined undiscounted cost of two, whichever is cheaper. It will only help the dated merchandise go faster, because if it costs more to buy it that way, no one will get it when they get two! I wonder if that's not a coding error in their checkout system, or if that's really intentional.

When I was a wee girl, back in bygone days of yore, big companies and prominent individuals employed 'cuttings services' to scour papers and periodicals and send them cuttings of any entries or stories about them. If big companies nowadays aren't using similar digital services to scrutinise the internet and pick up on feedback about their services they will end up out of touch and struggling to meet customer demands...... which could explain a lot about M&S's current business predicament.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius i am not a fan of tesco for ethical reasons but this kind of thing is why people end up shopping there. They might have lost money on your DHs occasion but he has told people about it and you have told us. It's these stupid situations where the offer isn't valid anymore so they won't honour it even though it was clearly labelled and you end up in a debate with a checkout assistant holding up a queue. It doesn't generally happen at Tesco. The thing is I would have expected m&s to have customer service standards higher than Tesco.

she has already said there was no full priced item left.

Then it's a case of sucking it up, it's not an uncommon, or recent scenario of not including discounting/out of date items in a loss leader of meal deals.

It's ironic to complain about the "race to the bottom" and still expect them to uphold some self imposed arbitrarily rules.

Justanotherlurker

Um, not sure what your point is or where you get “a race to the bottom” when in fact I did “suck it up” as you say. I didn’t buy the items and not did I cause a scene. Just posted on AIBU to see what other people thought of the situation that’s all.

I've had this situation and would now remove the yellow tag myself well away from the checkout so They don't see.

It's ridiculous!

The ridiculous thing for M&S is that there is a Waitrose next door and I went straight there and got my fruit for a 3 for 2 deal instead!