The great 'shop assistants: Divulge your sale tactics' Hunt

powertothepeople

B&Q discount items just because the packaging is damaged as many customers open boxes to look inside to see if everything is there. When a box has lots of tape on it, the reduction can be enormous - 20 - 50% some times and they put a small red sticker on it to say discount and reason.

powertothepeople

and another tip. I've noticed Lidl reduces items way before their expiry date. They don't tend to have alot of reductions as they sell lots of their products through quickly, but occasionally I've picked up a packet of ham for 30% discount when the sell by date was still 5 days away.

hannerrbabes

Jenniewb - when I worked there, the only items that were taken off the shop floor were out of season ones; which would go there whether or not we had sales coming.
When the sales were going to be were obvious. One of our managers thought it completely ludicrous that everyone knew that we were going to have a boxing day sale!! :S
Noone ever asked to use our staff discounts - how rude is that?! Our discount allowance was £250 per month.

MaggieBee - I have noticed this! At my local Tesco superstore, every night they would have tons of stuff in the reduced sections. You could buy fruit for 10p, sandwiches for 30p, etc. Now they hardly have any products reduced and they're not even half price!

Doc_N

maggiebee48 wrote: »

Has anyone else noticed Tesco being mingy with their reducing of price or is it just in Birmingham?

hannerrbabes wrote: »

MaggieBee - I have noticed this! At my local Tesco superstore, every night they would have tons of stuff in the reduced sections. You could buy fruit for 10p, sandwiches for 30p, etc. Now they hardly have any products reduced and they're not even half price!

Same here. Reductions galore at Waitrose, but practically nothing at Tesco.

I'm guessing it's all being relabelled with new dates - goes hand in hand with their wine sampling policy, as evidenced by a friend of ours who found that his wine had been opened before he got to it.

What was even worse was the manager's reaction when he complained - "Oh no, not another one".

VandenPlas

Apologies, this is a bit of a long one...

I currently work in a Maplin store. It's difficult to get a discount on goods off the shelf, but if you catch the manager in a good mood and it is an expensive item (say, over £150), you may get 5% off. Students can use their card for 5% off too.

You can get 5-10% off display items, but it must be the last one in the shop! Otherwise, they will just give you a boxed one. It makes sense, as if the display one is sold, we have to debox another one which can then get marked down.

Tatty and broken packaging can get between 5-10% off, sometimes 15% if it is missing altogether.

Buying in bulk is the best way to get a discount. Either ask in the shop or look at the product on Maplin's website (there will be a tab labelled 'bulk prices') and that will give you the price for the various quantities, although some products may not have a price break, it may still be worth asking. Normally the minimum quantity is 5 for a bulk discount.

Other ways to get a 'discount' is to have a low value good thrown in with a high value good, i.e. buying a tablet and getting a micro SD card free. Again, work on 5-10% as they will not go too high.

Apart from bulk discounts, all other discounts are at the discretion of the manager, so be nice! Some managers are more flexible than others.
Also, please do not hassle the shop assistants, we are not allowed to reduce things, only the manager, assistant manager or shift team leader can do so.

Business accounts do not get you any automatic discount, only the credit facility to pay off monthly and will run through head office. The shop itself will see nothing so a manager will be more helpful (again for reasonable expenditure) for a regular business user.

Unfortunately, there is no advance warning on sales. We have a list of discontinued products and we have two or three areas to put them out on. We just work through the list until it is all gone.
Promotional periods are prepared on a Tuesday and start on Wednesday so that's your day to go so you don't miss out as some stock is limited.

It is worth noting on the special offer and clearance tickets the terminology. If it says 'special offer', it will have been reduced and will have the old price on the ticket. If it says 'wow' or 'great price' it has not been reduced, just put on a clearance/offer in the hopes it sells.

It is hard to track prices (again you can ask staff), but sometimes an item maybe on offer at a greater price than last period - not always, but sometimes.

If an item is out of stock, don't despair - as long as it is not discontinued - it can normally be ordered in from the main warehouse. However, transferring it from another shop will cost £10, so avoid that unless you're desperate.

At the moment, for web orders, you can get Shutl delivery for £3.99 which can get your item to you within 90 minutes! They do have an exception clause though, so it may take longer due to traffic, etc.

Also on the web there is shopping discounts. This is lifted straight from the website:
'Shopper Discounts & Rewards is an online reward programme offering members access to great discounts and cashback opportunities from popular retailers and service providers. You’ll be offered the chance to become a member of the Shopper Discounts & Rewards programme when you complete an online purchase at Maplin.
As a member of Shopper Discounts & Rewards, you can claim an introductory £15 cashback offer when you make a second purchase at Maplin, and then you can claim a £10 member bonus each and every month that you make another purchase at Maplin. All you have to do is send your receipt to Shopper Discounts & Rewards. You also get 20% off popular giftcards, and a minimum of 10% cashback when you shop at over 650 online stores after visiting the website. If you shop online regularly, this equates to hundreds of pounds in savings each year!'

We only have price promises on certain items - they will be marked by a blue ticket in the shop. Most of the time this is not worth it - they are put on items we're certain we cannot be beaten on. They have to be in stock in a certain area.

Another handy tip on tickets is that if it is on offer, it will tell you (often in very tiny writing) how long the offer will run for. If you can't find it ask a staff member, they will tell you.

The best offer we have on at the moment is batteries. 4 packs of AA and AAA, 2 packs of C and D and singular PP3 are buy one pack get two free! And you can mix and match. This offer is on until the 6th of August. They're decent batteries too, well on par with Duracell and Panasonic. I use them all the time (naturally).

Vouchers will be offered at the till, usually. They will ask to take you postcode to print you off some vouchers. Currently these are £3 off with a £35 or more spend and £7 over £75. They will be vaild for 30 days, but will not activate for 24 hours.
They should then ask you if you want to be put on the mailing list. You can say no and still have the vouchers. If they don't ask you about the mailing list and run it through, you have been automatically added. Please report them if they do this as this is against our policy!
You can also sign up any time on Maplin's website and get £3, £5 and £7 off (sorry I can't remember the exact amounts you need to spend) and unsubscribe at any time. Although this is a good way to keep up with the latest web offers.

With returns, the policy is to offer an exchange, then a credit note and then a refund. Most stores are okay, but don't feel bullied into taking a credit note if you don't want one. The refund policy should be displayed near the tills, use this if you need it. Again, a manager will need to authorise a exchange/refund, please don't shout at the floor staff!
The easiest way to return/exchange goods is to bring your receipt, but if you have lost it and have paid by card, we can normally track it through the system and reprint the receipt. Also, any proof of purchase is acceptable, so a bank statement will do. Receipts do make everything a lot easier, though. If you have bought in another store, we have to ring them up to try to track without a receipt and this is not always successful.
All items have at least a 12 month warranty, so keep your receipt safe, just in case! Also, there is a 28 day return policy, if you are not happy with the product, just bring it back. Again, the receipt makes life easier, and make sure everything is in the box and you have all the packaging. Missing parts/packaging will result in a partial refund.

I think that's all for now! I will post if anything else comes up. Hope it helps!

pawsies

We write obsolete on shelf edge labels of things that are being discontinued. They may go into clearance but they may also just sell and not be ordered again. If this is the case and it is a rare item then stock up!!

tc5712

Unfortunately they seem to have closed this loophole now but Sainsbury's used to be great when they reduced items that were also part of a multi-deal.

For example if two items were originally 2 for £5 priced at £3 each when you bought them at the reduced price it would still deduct the multi-buy saving.

I was actually PAIDED to take punnets of tomatoes away once that were 80p a pack or 2 for a £1. They were reduced to 10p so for every 2 packs I had in my basket I was up 40p! (I did actually buy a few items in addition so as not to alert them to the bug).