To think they should have reduced the price of the shoes in Tesco?

[Rewd]

A pair of childrens shoes from tesco, they were the last pair in my sons size and there was some damage to them.

By damage I mean messy glue around the joins and some black marks which looked like permanent marker on the white of the shoe which didn't budge when I tried to clean it with a wipe.

I took them to a till and explained that they were the last pair on the shelf in that size and asked if the store would consider selling them at a reduced rate because they're not in great condition. The woman on the till quite bluntly said no. I said no problem I'll put them back then.

As I turned to return them to the aisle she called over her supervisor and repeated my request to her, to which she said to me "well we're not going to reduce, there's not much wrong with them is there" in a really shitty tone.

Was I being unreasonable? As far as I was aware it was common practice to sell damaged stock at a reduced rate, and if not common practice then a gesture of good will.

Was I being unreasonable?

My attitude or perceived entitlement isn't the problem here, it's piss poor customer service to speak to a customer the way they did me.

Well you should've said something to them then.

@sanityisamyth

They're not damaged. They're badly made. You get what you pay for.

They had what looked like permanent black marker on the top of the shoe, none of the others on the rack were like that.

They were damaged.

Why did you want to buy damaged shoes?

You don't need to change your mind but why ask if you're being unreasonable if you believe you aren't?

@RumpoleoftheBaileys

Why did you want to buy damaged shoes?

They were wearable and only for nursery so it didn't matter that they weren't perfect, my point is i don't think anybody should have to pay full price for something damaged.

If somebody went in an hour before me and bought the same shoes in another size which were in perfect condition, why is it good customer service to have the next person pay the same price for a pair that are tainted.

It's not.

That's why, like others have said, those shoes will end up reduced at some point soon.

@Rosebel

You don't need to change your mind but why ask if you're being unreasonable if you believe you aren't?

Because I was interested in whether other people felt that I was.

@Rewd

Out of interest, OP, how much were you hoping to get off the shoes, if they were perfectly OK other than a couple of blemishes? How would you have reacted if they offered to take 25p or 50p off them?

I would have bought them, %100.

It was the principle.

I wasn't expecting a huge discount in the first place, I just felt they should be reduced slightly due to the fact they weren't in perfect condition.

I don't think it's right that any customer should pay the same price for something damaged, that somebody else pays for the same item but in perfect condition.

But that’s your choice to make! You either buy it anyway or you hope it’s reduced at some point. You don’t go and ask! I’m seriously almost speechless at the blatant gall of doing that.

It’s not even the fact that you were trying it on that’s so outrageous to me! It’s the fact that you obviously think you were entirely justified and they were unreasonable not to thank you for taking their faulty stock off their hands.

@Purpletomato

Would they have accepted them back for a refund if they didn't fit or would they have said no because of the black marks on them? I think they'd have refused a refund on the grounds of no longer being in saleable condition - in which case they should reduce the price. I wouldn't buy scruffed up items at full price.

I'm sure they wouldn't exchange them back for a full refund if returned in that condition as they would argue the product must be in a good condition for resale. In that case they should have reduced them. YWNBU to ask, they were U to refuse. I wouldn't buy them if scuffed and if they were the last pair would reluctantly do the same as you

So you're making all this fuss for 25p?

Jesus wept.

The things they discount, they do in a managed way, not because someone asks them to.

They were for nursery a mark on the toe is hardly going to matter OR it matters to you & you wouldn't want them even if they took a fiver off them.

It has been mad in retail today, they really don't need this crap.

Customer asks for reduction on a price.
Customer is told no.
Customer doesn't like being told no and pulls out the "The staff were rude'" line to justify a moan.

Gets boring after a while.

Working in a supermarket, we weren't allowed to reduce anything when asked to (Whoops! on dated food). Could have been to do with trading standards?
Maybe they are allowed to offer a reduction but can't agree to do it because you've asked?x

Gosh, you’re a very principled women op. All this for twenty five pence.

@Rewd

I'm not too bothered about the lack of reduction, moreso the way in which I was spoken to for asking.

I always see reduced items in there when I'm shopping, reduced for reasons not too dissimilar to the shoes, so I don't know why my inquiry was so badly received.

The thing , your contract with Tesco , and any shop, is at the point of sale ie the checkout. If the shop says £10.99 but you think that your purchase is worth less then it's your choice to accept or decline. Shops aren't under legal obligations to fullfil your wishes regarding the purchase.

That the product was substandard to your eyes is not the issue but the shop might offer a goodwill gesture.

If you felt that your service was substandard then email HQ .

You are not entitled to a reduction at the point of sale.

I have done this before and they said yes but no refund so 10% off, sold as seen. No need for them to be rude OP.

OP, I think you’re getting a hard time. I think you’re getting snippy replies because you made the cardinal British mistake of asking for something, whereas Americans have a ‘you don’t ask, you don’t get’ approach.

You did nothing wrong, and having worked in retail, I would have reduced the item by 10%, and if I couldn’t do that, I would have told you in a polite way that unfortunately I couldn’t reduce it.

Sometimes I’ve returned something outside of the 28 day window at Tesco’s, and it really depends on which customer assistant serves you, some are very strict and some are more willing to help. I never get annoyed at the assistants who say no, they’re just doing their job, but I would be annoyed if they said no rudely.

@1Morewineplease it’s obvious that OP’s issue is not the denial of a discount, it’s the way she was spoken to. She has said this repeatedly.

Gosh, you’re a very principled women op. All this for twenty five pence.

OP doesn’t say it was a 25p discount. Someone else asked if she would have accepted a 25p or 50p discount and OP said yes. I don’t think it’s the about the money.

I'm baffled as to why anybody wouldn't just either think "It's only a little mark and they're cheap - I don't care" and buy them; or otherwise think "I'm not buying that pair - they've got defects" and walk on by.

You could make a point about anything if you have the time and can be bothered. One slice of cake in the bakery has been cut slightly thinner than another from the same cake or has no chocolate button on when the neighbouring slice has. In fact, you could even complain that the size 1 shoe you're buying costs the same as a size 7, which comes with a lot more material. Who is harder done-by: somebody paying £14 for a perfect pair of size 1s or somebody paying £14 for a pair of size 7s with slight cosmetic defects on them?

A lot of it is just circumstance and/or the luck of the draw. Like anything, if it's a deal-breaker for you, just walk on by and don't go to the till with the item to 'make the deal' by buying it.

My DSis worked one Christmas in C&A (obviously many years ago!) and the sheer number of people who would bring clothes with small and/or imagined defects (including those with lipstick marks - the exact same colour as the customer was wearing) and demand a hefty discount for 'shoddy' goods was unbelievable. There were even the odd one or two who were expecting things completely free as "they were in no condition to be sold". Company policy was to thank the customer for bringing it to their attention, confirm that the shop did not wish to sell sub-standard goods and advise that the item would thus be completely withdrawn from sale forthwith. They were not at all happy, for the most part, but they were being responded to in kind.

There was also once a promotion in The Sun whereby you could have a discount with a coupon if you spent £5 at C&A (as I said, a good 20+ years ago). This offer was made in the full knowledge that the shop sold a lot of items at £4.99 and deliberately set with the shop's income stream/profitability in mind so that people would need to buy two such items to qualify. Immense amounts of customers were demanding to 'give' an extra 1p so as to get the discount off the one item at £4.99 and were furious at the assistants (many of them just teenagers earning some Christmas money) for following management orders and disallowing this. Nobody was forcing them to buy anything at all.

it’s obvious that OP’s issue is not the denial of a discount, it’s the way she was spoken to. She has said this repeatedly.

If they were rude, then that's bad of them; but as a customer, you don't know how many people have already turned up that day with goods and asked for discounts or tried to haggle as if Tesco was a street bazaar. If there's a queue of people waiting to pay for goods at the prices advertised on the shelves, they will also be annoyed - and who then gets the grief for it?

Some supermarkets will penalise or 'discipline' check-out assistants if they don't serve so many customers per hour or if they have queues longer than a certain number of people.

Whether the person asking for a discount has caused the damage deliberately themselves or not, they must surely know that the person at the till has no authority to knock 10% or whatever off and will have to call a manager, thus annoying a long queue of pre-Christmas shoppers. It's the equivalent of turning up with a great big bag of pennies to pay for a trolley-load of goods: however friendly and smiley you are, you have still knowingly taken a big liberty and acted selfishly and left the checkout woman/man to deal with the grief they'll get because of your actions.

how is a blunt 'no' rude?

working in retail through covid has brought out the worst in the public.

Shops are weird about people asking for reductions. I used to work in a big chain and a manager could give 10% but they generally didn't want to. Maybe because of the suspicion that people might damage stuff to get a discount. Or perhaps because haggling isn't normal in that sort of shop the rest of the time. So I don't think it was you, it's just not seen as the done thing.

Over what would probably have been pennies then I think YABU. They're already very cheap shoes and discounts for damaged stock are typically 10/20% sold as seen with no returns.

There was no need for them to be rude, but I do have some sympathy with their feelings when a customer requests something that would probably cause several people to be inconvenienced over less than a quid

@Hayeahnobut

It's the attitudes that have upset me. I left feeling like an idiot because of how my query was received.

Not sure that there's a chirpy way to say no?

You're embarrassed that they didn't say yes, fair enough. But don't try to deflect that onto the staff.

Course there is! What a ridiculous comment. Staff have to say no to things all the time and can do so in a pleasant tone...

Wow. You've invested a lot in this thread just from having a customer service worker be a little abrupt or rude to you?

I think you need to manage your expectations. This is a near minimum wage worker who have been rude or may just have communicated in a way you wouldn't. Others may not have found her rude.

You really need to get some perspective. To be this annoyed seems disproportionate.

And I think this is just as much about them not doing what you wanted as it is about her manner (hence you drawing a picture of said shoe and mark, and the amount of replies you've written regarding the desired discount). Get over it.

Invested alot in this thread? Oh give over.

Do you actually think I've been sitting at home seething about this? Is it not possible that I posted about a minor inconvenience like almost all of the posters on AIBU and then got on with my day.

I'm replying to people when they write to me, I couldn't give a shit about the shoes. It's old news now.