To return something to purchase it again on sale?

[polka14]

DOI: I haven't actually done this.

WWYD if you bought X, it has just delivered and you go to leave a review and notice it is now on sale. Would you return your full price item to re-buy at the discounted price? Are there any rules around this?

Damm Mumsnet and it's no edit button and damm my phone which auto corrected debt to dept.
😂

I haven't returned stuff but I have contacted the company regarding a similar thing.

I ordered something, there was a slight delay (a couple of days) and in that time the item was reduced. I contacted the company and said I'd noticed the reduction, since the item had not been delivered yet should I cancel and reorder the item or would they sell to me at the reduced price.

I got the discount.

@Beachtrip yes obviously there is always more to a major company going into administration....but people do seem to want goods cheaper and cheaper and then complain their favourite shop is either closing down or never has enough staff or everything is poor quality made in china etc.

Damm Mumsnet and it's no edit button and damm my phone which auto corrected debt to dept.

Your phone is a secret MNer and thus on 'lower-mid six figures' and shops at Waitrose, so it has no concept of the word 'debt'

You bought at a price you were happy to pay. Foe a few cheap items no I wouldn't. Not worth the effort to me or the shop or the carbon footprint for a few pounds. Plus of you return and get a new one shipped theres always a change it could be damaged and no good to you.

It would be interesting if shops had a scheme whereby would-be customers could go on a waiting list to buy any now-out-of-stock goods that may unexpectedly become available again - like with tickets at theatre box offices.

Imagine the bunfight when person A returns the full-price item and gets a refund, then, before they can buy it straight back again, has it whisked away instantly as a message on the screen pops up to say that person B - the first on the waiting list - now has priority to buy that 'newly in stock' item, at the current sale price of course

It would have to be over a certain amount to me - a dress reduced from £40 to £20 I wouldn’t bother, but a designer handbag from £1200 to £800 I probably would, if I caught it (but I wouldn’t ever expressly search for it).

I contact in first instance and if I don’t get any joy, return and rebuy

You bought at a price you were happy to pay.

Yes, and there's also the slight possibility that the shop may dynamically reduce the price of goods once the stock levels dip below a certain quantity, to clear the inventory and make space for new lines. If a significant amount of them are subsequently returned to take advantage of the offer, that could cause the stock count to increase back up to 'normal' levels and thus they wouldn't have been reduced in the first place!!

I have done it loads of times!

asked Amazon to refund the difference on an item that had been reduced since I bought it (apparently they used to do this within X number of days). They advised me to return the item and re buy at the new price 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes absolutely. I bought a top for £100, the next week it was on sale for £55! Returned it and re-bought it no problem. Why wouldn't you?

Yep, I’ve done this. Bought 2 pairs of flared trousers from New Look, around £18 each. Then a few days later they went on sale for £6 each… I bought the new ones online in the sale and then returned the ones I had in store still brand new with tags on… saved well over £20 and would do it again. X

I always do this when it's worth while to.

Why would the sales assistants be reprimanded?
They don’t have the authority to decide if something should be refunded/exchanged or not. That’s down to the store policy and consumer rights.

OP Absolutely return the item and re purchase.
If the store was managed correctly, they should facilitate this and refund the difference by receipt alone but they will make it as cumbersome as possible and insist on the goods being returned.

i wouldn’t give a fig about what the assistants thought of people doing this. The more money the consumer has, the more they will spend and that is what keeps people in employment.

decide

Why would the sales assistants be reprimanded? They don’t have the authority to decide if something should be refunded/exchanged or not. That’s down to the store policy and consumer rights.

That might be true, but they still got reprimanded for it, and pulled up on it too.

It's one of the reasons I left retail. We each had our own till log-ins and if you ended up with a customer wanting to do loads of exchanges or refunds, it hit your sales figures.

Management believed we should be converting refunds to exchanges or, better still, up-selling so that if a customer (for example) came in to swap a pair of jeans, we should be doing the swap AND selling them, say, a belt or a t-shirt on top too.

Is it fair? No, but that's retail for you!

I've done it and was very clear from the outset that I was planning to buy it back cheaper, so they just refunded the difference.

I always find the hassle of returning something doesn't make it feel worthwhile anyway. Do I really want to queue up in the post office for 20 minutes just to then reorder and wait for the courier to deliver it? Maybe if it was a significant reduction then yes but not for a tenner...

I don't particularly understand when people buy lots of clothes they are not intending to keep anyway - slightly separate issue I know, but all those free returns just keep pushing prices up for everyone. I'm in some clothing FB groups for specific brands and people will buy something in 5 different colours or just to try it on even though they know they can't afford to keep them anyway.

@Youcansaythatagainandagain have you ever worked in retail? If the person on the till dares to utter the words "I have to ask a manager/supervisor about that" they end up getting the customer huffing and puffing and treating them like crap.
You would not believe the amount of stuff that people bring back for refunds. It's ridiculous amounts. The amount of refunds that get done in a day means a shop either needs to have a dedicated customer service desk or the poor manager is being called down to the tills every 5 minutes.
Primark used to have dedicated customer service tills for refunds. The queue used to spiral round the stores. Now refunds can be done at any tills so any member of staff has to make the decision whether or not to refund. When you are faced at a "I WANT a refund" demanding customer and there's a queue building up it's really hard to have to make that decision quickly.
I didn't sell clothes - my specialty was toys and it was amazing how many people would change from "I changed my mind and don't want this product" to "oh but actually it's faulty" if they were told no to a refund (rules on faulty products are different).
I'm sorry people but refunding something to buy again cheaper is a sucky thing to do to a shop and really not on.

LOLOL they didnt go bankrupt because of sale items for goodness sake. High streets shops went due to the competition of online stores and the pandemic. Good grief- talk about dramatic.

There is nothing wrong with doing this- its not illegal or immoral. You are perfectly within your consumer rights to return an item.

@ParisNoir the retailer I worked for went bust almost 14 years ago. It was nothing to do with covid and internet shopping wasn't at it's peak (although it was starting to affect it).
It was a large mixture of reasons.
But some days on certain departments there were more refunds given than sales because people just "didn't really want it". This often meant we were stuck with old stock which might only sell if reduced or we simply didn't have shelf space for it so it's got stuck in the stockroom.

@ParisNoir also a retailer is perfectly within their rights to tell you a big giant NO on refunds. Unless faulty or not fit for purpose they don't have to refund at all.

Then thats the fault of the store and their planning, its not the customer's fault is it? They could easily have said no refunds unless its faulty and if you want a refund for any other reason they'll happily give a credit note. Plenty of shops do that. Entitlement to refunds are legally allowed and if you go bankrupt due to refunds then I would suggest your merchandise isnt quite as good quality as you think it is because by this rationale, every store would go bankrupt because every store offers refunds.

Yes I would totally do this.

I always do this with online stuff. I keep the original then send back the new one with the original return so I don't have to wait for the new one to arrive as well.

Asos and other clothes retailers should sell things at a cheaper price in the first place instead of putting out 25% off so often.