Shaw's: scanner prices sometimes differing from shelf price

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

Happened to shop at Shaw's this afternoon and happened to be paying attention - 2 out of the 12 items I bought scanned at a different (higher) price than what was on the shelf. Customer service resolved it (though I bought 2 of one of the wrongly scanned items and I thought I should have had them both for free - but apparently Shaw's policy is the first for free - the other/rest at the correct price. Seems like a kind of "the house always wins" type rule - considering that other shoppers probably bought the same stuff and didn't track the difference).

Anyway - no big deal but the same ol' caveat emptor, pay attention, use your turn signals, don't wash lights and darks...

Oh - and don't "remove items from the bagging area" even if you didn't... or the robo cashier will yell at you.

Comments

[kpht.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this at Stop & Shop, too. It's completely illegal. I think it's illegal for them not to give you both items for free, but I might be wrong. Thanks for speaking up!

[aquaflame16.livejournal.com]

The law basically says, from what I can find and understand (resource links below) and what I remember from working in a grocery store, that scanned prices must match advertised prices, and if not they have to fix the price and give you the advertised price. Stores are legally required to meet 98% accuracy or be fined.

There is nothing in the law that says anything about giving anything free. This is a store policy that some (not all) grocery stores choose to have, and yes, the policy says that if something scans wrong then the first of that item is free and any additional units will be given at the correct/advertised cost (which is how it is at any store that I know of that has a voluntary guarantee like this.)

So it's actually not only not illegal for them not to give both items free, it's not even legally required for them to give even one item free.

But yeah, paying attention and checking your receipt before leaving the store is always a good idea, pain in the ass though it is.
Scanner errors happen, generally having no malice involved, just minor oversights, one (two, three) missed reprogramming(s) among thousands every week.

I agree it sux when you get "lucky" and have two in one order! Please remember not to take it out on the cashier, though, they generally have absolutely nothing to do with setting prices or programming scanners. A polite request to check the price on anything you think is wrong should do the trick. (Not making any assumptions that the OP did this, just a general plea for anyone thinking about this issue from someone who's been on the other side if this.)

okay, I'm done ;)

federal weights and measures tips for consumers (http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/money/whatupay/whatupay.htm)
"A Massachusetts Consumers Guide to Shopping Rights" (http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=ocaterminal&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Consumer&L2=Shopping%2C+Retail+%26+E-Commerce&L3=Shopping+Rights&sid=Eoca&b=terminalcontent&f=shopping_rights&csid=Eoca)
Dec. '06 Press Release: "Annual Price Survey Accuracy Results Excellent" (Mass.) (http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=pressreleases&agId=Eoca&prModName=ocapressrelease&prFile=06_12_21_pricesurvey.xml)

[angerona.livejournal.com]

In the "nah, let's blame the cashiers anyway" department, I've been noticing that the cashiers routinely enter items incorrectly, most often because they have no idea what it is that I'm buying. The last time the cashier entered avocados as honeydews (ok, those were large avocados, but still...) and even when I pointed out the problem, and that the price was right on each avocado, he thought that the price was per pound, not per each.

Other times I noticed the mistakes when I got home or already at the car, or it wasn't worth the time to go and get it dealt with after the fact, but why don't they train the cashiers to ask the buyer the name of the item if the cashier doesn't know? I can understand that pomegranates aren't the most common of fruits, but they are not so exotic that I can understand why they get entered incorrectly every single time I buy them.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Wait - isn't the point of putting those irritating little stickers on every single piece of fruit so that the cashiers -don't- have to memorize every produce item? Or does Shaw's not stickerize things (I don't shop there much)?

[angerona.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought, but apparently often the first fruit they pick up doesn't have a sticker and they just "remember" what it is. Or, as I said, they get confused about whether the price is per each or per pound. Or, despite the sticker, I somehow end up with the price of a (more expensive) similar item: for example, more expensive plums or tomatoes, etc.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure there's no law of any kind requiring them to give you anything for free because something ran up at the wrong price. When I worked at a bookstore I was always surprised at how many people seemed to think we would give them everything they were buying for free because there was some kind of register error. We didn't have any policy like that -- I think that's probably food & food-service thing only.

I've had issues with the self-checkout at Shaws, including things that were supposed to be on sale scanning at the wrong price, though they always seemed to resolve themselves after I finished the order (I guess sometimes the sale information doesn't kick in until the computer is tallying the total). I would assume that your problem must have been a different one from that, though! Frickin' self-checkout -- I seem to have some kind of issue with it every time. Luckily I only ran into the "snarky cashier" thing once; the rest of the times, they were at least polite & helpful, if not necessarily terribly animated.

[sekala.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is a food & food service thing, but mostly just food service. They can't take it back to the kitchen after all. It's only going to be thrown out. And you are 1)going to come back cause they gave you something free, and/or 2)going to tip better because they were nice to you. I've been on both sides of this in several places.

The self checkout is very weird. I was working at a shaw's when they first installed these... they don't always do what you expect them to. And it's tricky with the rewards card, cause depending on when you swipe it, the sales prices will come up at a different time.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

"Buy one, get one free" discounts don't appear until you tell the register you're done.

I get overcharged for something about half of the trips I make to Shaw's. If they're going to mess with their prices every week to play gouge-and-loss-leader games, they need to make the effort to keep the computer in sync with the shelf stickers.

It's because of this stuff that I shop at Market Basket or Trader Joe's when I can. If only they were open later...

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Yet another reason to shop at Market Basket!

[ron_newman]

Are they old-fashioined enough not to use scanners?

[cutieperson]

they're old-fashioned enough that a small wheelchair cannot fit down most, if not all, of the checkout lanes.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

well, no...but I've never had a scanner mis-read with them; and anyway, their prices are so much lower overall that it would make up the difference.

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

Market Basket is the only store I've been to that has run out of shopping carts because of the sheer number of shoppers. That's a massive undertaking and means a wait too long to fathom.

[sekala.livejournal.com]

I worked at a Shaw's for about 3 years, and my store, at least, never pulled that stuff. We took customers at their word, credited them for everything, asked where the sign was, and made adjustments accordingly. But the customer who complained was given what they thought was legitimate (not just giving them stuff free cause we screwed up, but if they thought it was 1.29 and it rang 1.50 we'd give them every item they had tried to buy at the 1.29 price) and thereafter management went to find out what the problem was i.e. signing error or computer error, and changed it to what it should be. Maybe it was because that Shaw's was in NH, I donno. I always like Shaw's especially after my time working there, but policies in different states may vary.

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you guys will admit that sometimes mistakes happen. I know there's a lot of people who love to hate shaws, but let's not put our tin-foil hats on just yet.

On the other hand, I am getting sick and tired of the slow, painful, robo-cashiers with questionable GUI design (why do you have to push two buttons to get to the payment options?? Obviously if you press the "finish" button, you're ready to say how you want to pay and don't need the "scan any additional items" page.)

How much do cashiers make these days, like $7.50/hr? Hire some more teenagers. I'm sure they'll make that up in loss prevention alone, since I'm sure it's pretty easy to sneak a few extra items through with you while checking out unsupervised.

My heart is with Market Basket though, having worked there (at one in NH) for 5 years growing up.

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

While I was at Shaw's yesterday the guy next to me got caught in the endless loop - "item removed from the bagging area.." so he put a bag back, got the same dunning msg, removed the bag, got the same msg... etc. It would be funny if it wasn't such an example of stupid design (GUI and sensor). Has happened to me too often before so I usually choose a meat cashier.

Was at IKEA last week and used their robo-cashier and it just worked.

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

I was at some big-box place, I think home depot, and noticed that they had the exact same system as Shaws.

[syntheticnature.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Home Depot. I've had such annoying experiences with their human cashiers that I found it to be a relief.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

My guess is that, if they didn't have robo-cashiers to make it clear they could cut back on the number of humans, they might just have to pay the humans more.

In other words, I'm pretty suspicious of the motives for putting them in, and as such make a point of not using them, and keeping jobs that a human really ought to be in anyway as active as I can.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I make a point of using them and requiring loads of human attention while doing so, backing up the line into the frozen good section.

[teko.livejournal.com]

The robo-cashiers at Shaw's are by far the worst I've ever used. Something seems to go awry every time I use one. Whenever I mis-enter a code or push the wrong button and cause havoc, I think "if it's this confusing for someone like me, who's reasonably tech-savvy and worked as a cashier for three years besides, it must be hell for all of the elderly patrons here."

Anyway, they must need them because all the employees are standing around in the aisles, re-stocking the shelves from the palettes that block the aisle and products you want to buy.... all the time.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

They also do not support the re-usable canvas bags that shaws sells for $1 each. We have a bunch of these and have to have the cashier/guard override the error every time.

It's like they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have fewer people working the checkout stations but they also have ZERO trust for the customer (or in the cashier/guard).

Man, I hate that place with a passion.

[grapefruiteater.livejournal.com]

I use the reusable bags, too. Just stick the groceries where you would if you were bagging them in plastic, but don't actually put them in the plastic bags. You can load them into the reusable bags after you've paid. It adds a few seconds, but it sure beats waiting for the Shaws person to fix the machine for you.

I have been trying to go to the human cashiers at Shaws, though, because I don't want those people to lose their jobs.