Tesco misprice policy discussion area

spa2k

Hopefully, heres a small explanation from a price integrity team leaders point of view why price errors occur....

All prices are held on a central database. There are variations by store which MUST be signed off daily by a senior manager.

Price changes are transmitted to the stores on a daily basis at several different times however most happen overnight

A price error occurs when either the price change has been actioned incorrectly instore by the price integrity staff (ie a new label depicting an increase has not been displayed) or the product is pre-priced and the price has been set up incorrectly at head office. The other error occurs when a price change happens on a product that is of a variable weight. There are other factors such as posters printed in advance depicting incorrect prices or pre stickered products...but these are relatively rare.

Say there are an average of 300 staff in a store, all of which have access to the labelling system but only 10 have price integrity training then its easy to see why errors occur.

I am not justifying errors, just trying to explain why they occur. I am also not justifying poor customer service for which there is no defence. On the other side not many people that experience the great service that Tesco so often does provide are going to post on this thread....

I hope this explains a little bit about why / how errors occur....as i have said before, the system is pretty damn good, its the human intervention where it goes wrong!!

Dick_Dastardly_3

spa2k wrote:

I hope this explains a little bit about why / how errors occur....as i have said before, the system is pretty damn good, its the human intervention where it goes wrong!!

The system depends on human intervention, thus if you are saying this is where it goes wrong, this implies by common logic that the system is fundamentally flawed, as it would be impossible to operate without Human Intervention (staff putting on labels, relabelling stock, etc), thus the process checks have not taken this factor satisfactorily into account, resulting in loads of pricing errors.

reme-bod

littlemissfrugal wrote:

No sympathy at all .... in my store the person concerned just spent 9 months nursing their dad holding down a full time job, 2 kids, but the pressures off a bit now their Dad died...

littlemissfrugal, I agree with you wholeheartedly. It's hard trying to keep your mind on one thing when there are so many other factors in your private life.

For instance, I had the misfortune to have my pet kidnapped and received a ransome note. Now this pet was no ordinary pet; it was a very rare albino penguin... called Fido. My great-grandfather discovered him during an expedition to the North Pole, and was extremely attached to him.

When Fido was kidnapped, the ransom was for a massive £1000, and we all had to scrape together our life savings in order to meet the demands. Eventually, our whole family amassed a total of £1001.48p. This was enough to meet the ransom demands and buy a small 'welcome home' treat for Fido. So, with a bag full of £5 notes and loads of pound coins and pennies, I headed to my local Tesco (quite possibly the one where you work), and went to buy a packet of Fox's Glacier Mints - Fido's favourites. These were advertised on the SEL as being £1.48, so I'd have exactly £1000 to give the kidnappers.

I was in a real hurry I had to meet the kidnappers in less than 10 minutes to do the exchange. I didn't have time to count the change, so I gave the nice lady at the checkout a fiver, and she gave me my change.

I met up with 'Big Dave - proffessional kidnapper' just behind the bike sheds in the local library carpark... he had a big bag with Fido in it. He took my bag of money and got into his rusty white van, and started counting every penny. I waited nervously... anxiously... for half an hour whilst he counted and recounted.
Without warning, the engine roared into life and he sped away in a cloud of black oily smoke. Confused and upset, I didn't understand what had just happened, until I looked at my receipt... instead of being charged £1.48, I had been OVERCHARGED and had paid £1.84!

This meant that Big Dave didn't receive his full £1000, and the result was a single white penguin feather delivered to our door the next day. There was a tiny spot of blood on the end. This was more than my poor great-grandad could take, and he died that night from a broken heart, at the sprightly young age of 140.

So you see, littlemissfrugal, I DO understand how these little innacuracies, although stressful to all, can have dramatic effects on innocents.

Bennifred

Just out of interest - why do we not get these misprice problems to the same degree with other supermarkets eg Waitrose? I have looked! :rolleyes: I guess if they don't offer the R&R there isn't the incentive for people to hunt them out (I'm thinking Sainsburys - they only offer the price difference :mad: ). On the few occasions I've had a problem with a Waitrose product (eg milk went off before use-by date, etc) they were extremely apologetic, refunded and also replaced. But they never seem to have misprices!

abijanzo

reme-bod wrote:

littlemissfrugal, I agree with you wholeheartedly. It's hard trying to keep your mind on one thing when there are so many other factors in your private life.

For instance, I had the misfortune to have my pet kidnapped and received a ransome note. Now this pet was no ordinary pet; it was a very rare albino penguin... called Fido. My great-grandfather discovered him during an expedition to the North Pole, and was extremely attached to him.

When Fido was kidnapped, the ransom was for a massive £1000, and we all had to scrape together our life savings in order to meet the demands. Eventually, our whole family amassed a total of £1001.48p. This was enough to meet the ransom demands and buy a small 'welcome home' treat for Fido. So, with a bag full of £5 notes and loads of pound coins and pennies, I headed to my local Tesco (quite possibly the one where you work), and went to buy a packet of Fox's Glacier Mints - Fido's favourites. These were advertised on the SEL as being £1.48, so I'd have exactly £1000 to give the kidnappers.

I was in a real hurry I had to meet the kidnappers in less than 10 minutes to do the exchange. I didn't have time to count the change, so I gave the nice lady at the checkout a fiver, and she gave me my change.

I met up with 'Big Dave - proffessional kidnapper' just behind the bike sheds in the local library carpark... he had a big bag with Fido in it. He took my bag of money and got into his rusty white van, and started counting every penny. I waited nervously... anxiously... for half an hour whilst he counted and recounted.
Without warning, the engine roared into life and he sped away in a cloud of black oily smoke. Confused and upset, I didn't understand what had just happened, until I looked at my receipt... instead of being charged £1.48, I had been OVERCHARGED and had paid £1.84!

This meant that Big Dave didn't receive his full £1000, and the result was a single white penguin feather delivered to our door the next day. There was a tiny spot of blood on the end. This was more than my poor great-grandad could take, and he died that night from a broken heart, at the sprightly young age of 140.

So you see, littlemissfrugal, I DO understand how these little innacuracies, although stressful to all, can have dramatic effects on innocents.

:rotfl: Lmao!!! :rotfl:
That should be post of the month Remebod!!!

spa2k

!!!!!!_Dastardly wrote:

The system depends on human intervention, thus if you are saying this is where it goes wrong, this implies by common logic that the system is fundamentally flawed, as it would be impossible to operate without Human Intervention (staff putting on labels, relabelling stock, etc), thus the process checks have not taken this factor satisfactorily into account, resulting in loads of pricing errors.

The process of price increases / decreases is not fundamentally flawed as you have indicated many times before. What i was trying to say is that like any system where there is human intervention, it will go wrong at some point. The bigger the system the greater the likelihood of an error at somepoint. NO system is perfect.

Lets say that for example a member of staff pulls off a label at 10.58am and puts it in their pocket for 5 minutes whilst they go to the toilet. at 11.02 i action a price change on that product thus replacing the original label. at 11.04 the member of staff puts out the label that he requested and got at 10.58. The member of staff cannot be aware of an impending price change, i cannot be aware that the member of staff has replaced my replacement label....the price is now wrong but no one is really to blame....all of the relevant checks have taken place......do you now see my point?

Dalkirst

Classic Reme-Bod:rotfl:

abijanzo

spa2k wrote:

Lets say that for example a member of staff pulls off a label at 10.58am and puts it in their pocket for 5 minutes whilst they go to the toilet. at 11.02 i action a price change on that product thus replacing the original label. at 11.04 the member of staff puts out the label that he requested and got at 10.58. The member of staff cannot be aware of an impending price change, i cannot be aware that the member of staff has replaced my replacement label....the price is now wrong but no one is really to blame....

It's just amazing how many members of staff nationwide took the same Antonio Carluccio book/label to the loo with them..... :rotfl:

reme-bod

spa2k wrote:

The process of price increases / decreases is not fundamentally flawed as you have indicated many times before. What i was trying to say is that like any system where there is human intervention, it will go wrong at some point. The bigger the system the greater the likelihood of an error at somepoint. NO system is perfect.

Lets say that for example a member of staff pulls off a label at 10.58am and puts it in their pocket for 5 minutes whilst they go to the toilet. at 11.02 i action a price change on that product thus replacing the original label. at 11.04 the member of staff puts out the label that he requested and got at 10.58. The member of staff cannot be aware of an impending price change, i cannot be aware that the member of staff has replaced my replacement label....the price is now wrong but no one is really to blame....all of the relevant checks have taken place......do you now see my point?

Perhaps airport style body scanning machines, configured to detect rogue SELs should be installed at each staff toilet entrance. Think of the money it would save!

abijanzo

reme-bod wrote:

Perhaps airport style body scanning machines, configured to detect rogue SELs should be installed at each staff toilet entrance. Think of the money it would save!

Youre on a roll tonight arent ya! :T