Real life MMD: Time to tell on the veg hoarders?

gloriouslyhappy

How do you know they're stockpiling for hours ahead of repricing time, are you perhaps there watching them? In which case, what a waste of time! Life's too short, leave 'the vegetables' to their vegetable bargains and go off and smell the roses, much better for the blood pressure!

pennypinchUK

You think the store manager doesn't already know? A similar thing happened for a while in our local store - punters would walk in to the store and take their pick of bargains that were reduced to half price. They'd wander around until the assistant started reducing to 80% off and then they'd return and ask the assistant to check the price of the item they'd picked up. Wadya know, the assistant would reduce their item.

The store simply stopped reducing prices at the same time each evening and immediately the practice stopped.

Don't think for one moment the supermarkets will miss a single trick to extract every single penny they can from us.

happyinflorida

Has MSE seriously got this down as this weeks question?!!!!

if it is serious then the person asking the question needs to get a life and stop people watching in a supermarket as they're seriously getting a bit too snoopy for their own good

why do you think they're getting more veggies - getting more aggressive about it all? Think.........could it be anything to do with the current hard times - some people have lost all their benefits and are worried sick about being able to afford heating, eating and paying rent/mortgage - so may I politely suggest you leave them alone as they may have such a !!!! life at the moment that it could only take one thing to tip them over - fancy having a suicide on your hands? No then stop interferring and being so ridiculous and go and volunteer for a charity as you've got so much free time

syco1

I have had the same problem at two Morrisons stores with reduced bread, cream cakes etc. Personally, if I drop on bargain it gives me the chance to buy something I wouldn't normally, or just to have a treat, but I came across a few really agressive people who block the area with their trolleys and just stand waiting. One even loads his trolley up, and when it is time for reductions, he hands them to the assistance and gets them reduced and put straight back in his trolley. I found out he runs his own cafe. Another buys any cakes and resells them round hospital wards. I complained about the way they do things (twice) and then started going elsewhere instead. I have also tried another Morrisons, and at this one there are gangs of Romanians who physically barge anyone else out of the way while waiting for final reductions. The staff hate this but say there is nothing they can do. I would love to film it, most people wouldn't believe it. When the Romanians leave they all have 61 reg BMW estate cars. I now shop at Asda, and keep away from bargains.

MC_Emily_2

ooo000ooo wrote: »

......MRs X advised that she wouldn't be doing any repricing until she'd finished what she was doing and she should put the salmon back in the fridge until then as if it's out for more than 15 minutes it should be thrown out......

God help those of us who live more than 15 minutes drive away, with the salmon sat in a warm car, then!! lol Never heard of anything so stupid!!! It can take more than 15 minutes to get through the check out sometimes!! :rotfl::rotfl:

morrisonsworker

MC_Emily wrote: »

God help those of us who live more than 15 minutes drive away, with the salmon sat in a warm car, then!! lol Never heard of anything so stupid!!! It can take more than 15 minutes to get through the check out sometimes!! :rotfl::rotfl:

After reading all the comments here I can agree with most. People who are there looking for bargains are obviously in need of a bargain. I even do it myself sometimes.
As for the quote above, I work in Morrisons and we can only keep things off the shelf for 15 minutes. If we have this rule we can make sure our stock is always the best quality. As for those people who have to travel 15 minutes home I am sure it will be fine. It is just a precaution. You know you will complain if it isnt premium quality when you put it in your trolley!!

t3h_1337_n1nj4

I work evenings on produce at a supermarket, and these people are the bane of my life (the aggressive, pushy ones! I'm more than happy to help the rest who are usually nice and aren't trying to hog everything ). They aren't doing it because they're poor - well, not all of them are. Some, maybe. But the most regular ones will snatch up a lot of stuff... as much as possible - more than they could possibly ever eat before most of it would be rotten/inedible - and then some are seen driving away in flashy cars. The way they will hover around the shop for literally hours before descending on the items being reduced has led to many of us calling them vultures. They're only in there for the 10p stuff, everyone knows it, and they know that everyone knows it and they don't care. When they come in they'll sometimes ask "anything today?" which would be pretty confusing from any other customers, but I rarely if ever see these ones buy anything without a sticker on.

They're rough about it. They push, they shove, they argue, snatch, shout, lie, chase... There's been all but punches thrown, and I heard even that happened one time. Sometimes we'll just have had enough and walk away, refusing to do any more. Our managers back us up. One of my smaller colleagues has actually been pushed into the chiller she was putting products into before. They used to wave stuff in our face demanding a label reducing it further when like someone already said earlier, it can already be substantially reduced, but I've put a stop to that happening to myself by refusing to do things people are holding.

I also (and have been getting colleagues to do the same) stopped reducing things that people have already put in their trollies. Anything that was already in the trolley was accepted at its current price, which is company policy anyway but it seemed to have been neglected til I heard of it and clung to it for dear life (and for not spending my entire shift doing markdowns). Some of these people would push stuff around in their trollies for hours upon hours until we were reducing things before it, in which time many other people could've had a chance to get what still would have been a bargain, and been willing to pay more than 10p for it.

Hah, you should see the looks on their faces when I refuse to reduce certain things down to that level because I know they'll sell at 40/50p. In all honesty I don't care too much about making those extra few pennies, the company wouldn't mind if I put it right down to 10p at that time of night, but it stops them from grabbing every single punnet of strawberries (for example), and other people are happy to get some fruit for cheap.

When things are looking very bad, i.e. when there's a lot of stuff needing reduced and there's quite a few of them hanging around, we'll sometimes take it into the back room to reduce so we're not being surrounded and pushed while doing it. If the vultures notice this (and they usually do), they'll stand right outside the door into the back and unless you run you'll not even get a chance to get to the clearance bay before half the stuff has been fought over and there's only the scraps left. A few times I've gone out of a different door just so I didn't have to deal with it - I could hear the sprinting from halfway down the shop!

I'll stop now because otherwise I could be here for hours, but basically to the dilemma... yes. Complain to the manager. There might not be a lot they can do about it, but they aren't happy about it either and they might give the worker doing the reducing a little more flexibility to help people out.

cplatten

joehoover wrote: »

What and where is this supermarket?
I'm imagining people swordfighting with cucumbers and throwing avocado grenades at each other. Sounds like fun.

It was never fun. It was scuzzy (the practice - not the supermarket!)

It was always happening at that supermarket - every day! I would watch groups / families of them go around looking at ready meals and fruit and veg for that day's date, put them in their trollies, and then hang around the store until some poor staff member came out to do the reductions early evening. They would then thrust the items under his nose and insist on their reductions. There was never anything for any other customers.

They were the same ones who beg in groups on the London streets.

Various store managers tried to tackle the problem, with mixed success, but it was all very unpleasant.

rinabean

This question is bizarre. How could anybody who is not staff of a supermarket know what anyone is doing for several hours in one? Seems like they're one of these "stockpilers", but they don't have sharp enough elbows to get anything themselves.

halsteadk

It seems rather sad if the only way some people can think of saving money (and spending their time) is to do this - I also wonder how much of what they buy goes to waste because they've bought too much.

They could save far more by spending 30 minutes checking out this website! There's no point in looking after the pennies if the pounds are ignored.

Agreed with having a quiet word with store management if these people are intimidating other customers - but you can't do that just because someone has put 50 bananas in their trolley.