Stupid Marketing Decisions

[ivinsfan]

I'm following up to the pay TV complaint with a fun experience on Target live chat yesterday.

Our youngest DD was here and we did some online ordering for the GK Christmas, they all love Lego. The hot sets sell out and seldom go on sale Target had a 10 dollar gift card for a 50 dollar lego purchase.


Fast forward to yesterday, I get am email saying one of the sets I bought has been reduced by 20% around 15 bucks. I went on Target.com chat thinking it would be easy as they have a price match guarantee for 30 days I think.

After an exceedingly long back and forth, they tell me yes it is cheaper, but that's a promotional price, not a sale price so that won't be matching it.


I say I'm just going to order another one and return the first one so that doesn't make sense to me. Just do a price adjustment. The rep again says no and tells me to avoid having to go to the store I can refuse delivery when it shows up at my door. Since I can't believe my ears, I repeated let me get this straight you would rather pay shipping to return it and then ship another free to me again, instead of just crediting my RedCard.

Yep that's Target policy..someone tell me how on earth this hairbrained idea because policy for a major online retailer..

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

This is stupid yet not shocking to me. I had the same chat conversation with amazon a couple days back re: a $40 difference in sale price. Fixed in approx. 2 mins while I enjoyed coffee and chatted with my Mom. And they wonder why Amazon is mopping the floor with other retailers....

 

[CaptTom]

Same experience with Amazon. They just nailed the whole concept of customer service.

I have heard that they'll go after any customer who abuses it, barring them for life with very little recourse or even explanation. So I make sure never to ask for anything I don't think is totally reasonable. I've made a lot of purchases, and had a few problems they've happily resolved. So far so good.

 

[Chuckanut]

The local mega-store near me spends a fortune advertising this and that to get us to come in and buy things. So, a week ago I wander in with a fistful of money to buy a number of things - some on sale, others at the regular price. Nothing is unusual or weird - a few food items, washers for a hose, glue, etc. They only had about 1/2 the stuff I needed and that included some sale items. ?!?!?!?

Mr. Retailer, you spent money to get me into the store with money to spend and I can only buy 1/2 of what is on my list. Why advertise to get me into the store and not have the basic stuff that people need in their lives? Not so good.

 

[CaptTom]

Mr. Retailer, you spent money to get me into the store with money to spend and I can only buy 1/2 of what is on my list. Why advertise to get me into the store and not have the basic stuff that people need in their lives? Not so good.

I think you've hit on one of the stupider marketing/management trends.

"Inventory reduction" is all the rage. Just-in-time deliveries, fewer different products, smaller warehouse, etc.

The funniest was one product I wanted, which is only used in pairs. They always only had one in the bin. For over a year. And not just the one store, I checked others from the same chain. Nope. The powers that be decided each store could only stock one. I eventually ordered a pair on line.

Another thing you see shortly before the decline of any popular chain store is some brain-trust MBA at the home office deciding they could make much more money by replacing the small or low-cost products which brought the chain's success in the first place with larger or higher-margin products. Duh.

 

[kcowan]

I have heard that they'll go after any customer who abuses it, barring them for life with very little recourse or even explanation. So I make sure never to ask for anything I don't think is totally reasonable. I've made a lot of purchases, and had a few problems they've happily resolved. So far so good.

There was a poster here who had been banned by Amazon. All his Kindle books, his Prime movies, Firestick, Alexa gone with no recourse!