Big Lots

[Alpha8472]

Big Lots will start accepting Bed Bath and Beyond coupons starting April 27. You will get 20 percent off a purchase of $50 or more through May 7, 2023. The Container Store will also accept BBB coupons for 20% off a single item through May 31.

I have never spent anything even close to $50 at Big Lots. I can't imagine what I would buy.

https://chainstoreage.com/big-lots-acce ... nd-coupons

[storewanderer]

I think the only way to get to $50 at Big Lots would be if you bought some kind of furniture item. I wonder if the offer includes furniture.

Big Lots before COVID was constantly doing 20% off everything weekends (no minimum purchase).

[BillyGr]

Big Lots will start accepting Bed Bath and Beyond coupons starting April 27. You will get 20 percent off a purchase of $50 or more through May 7, 2023. The Container Store will also accept BBB coupons for 20% off a single item through May 31.

I have never spent anything even close to $50 at Big Lots. I can't imagine what I would buy.

https://chainstoreage.com/big-lots-acce ... nd-coupons

They do tend to have a fair amount of seasonal items (which would be outdoor summer type stuff now), so there are probably some bigger cost items there.

Could also work with a bunch of smaller items (they have many aisles of foods, health & beauty, paper/plastic bag items and similar) - those add up fairly quickly for some things (say a decent size bottle of laundry soap, big pack of paper towels, big bottle of honey and similar items that come to mind).

[storewanderer]

Bought a few items today at Big Lots. Got what was I guess a new cashier. He kept trying to scan normal UPCs on everything (not the Big Lots price tag). So I had 3 items and 2 of them the normal UPC scanned. The third item he kept repeatedly trying to scan the normal UPC and the register kept giving an error. After about the 5th time he did that, the register locked up and needed a manager code to continue the transaction. The manager came up and got mad at him for not scanning the Big Lots price tag and repeated to him very annoyed "YOU ALWAYS SCAN THE BIG LOTS PRICE TAG FIRST AND NEVER THE PACKAGE UPC UNLESS THERE IS NO BIG LOTS PRICE TAG." Such a poor system. And one wonders why they are always hiring.

[Alpha8472]

That is sort of like Ross where they have their own Ross UPC and don't scan the standard UPC.

Perhaps they need to train new employees better.

[storewanderer]

Dillards does this on clearance items where they cover up the standard UPC and put a different UPC onto the items but it isn't a big deal since they cover up the standard UPC.

But Big Lots is too cheap for that. Big Lots sticks its little tiny price sticker on the front of the package. The UPC is usually on the back/bottom/side of the package and they don't cover that up.

I do not understand why Big Lots cannot just use standard UPC codes for all of its products. They appear to use the same POS system as Hobby Lobby uses. Maybe there is some weird limitation with that system that it is no good for scanning standard UPCs.

[ClownLoach]

Dillards does this on clearance items where they cover up the standard UPC and put a different UPC onto the items but it isn't a big deal since they cover up the standard UPC.

But Big Lots is too cheap for that. Big Lots sticks its little tiny price sticker on the front of the package. The UPC is usually on the back/bottom/side of the package and they don't cover that up.

I do not understand why Big Lots cannot just use standard UPC codes for all of its products. They appear to use the same POS system as Hobby Lobby uses. Maybe there is some weird limitation with that system that it is no good for scanning standard UPCs.

Big Lots doesn't have a system limitation. They intentionally block most UPCs except for the 5000 or so SKUs that are auto replenished and always full price. You'll find lots of situations where depending on age on shelf - or arrival date - the same exact item has multiple prices. It isn't always a missed price change although they seem to have the same problems with managing those as the Dollar stores who have been fined repeatedly for violations of weights and measures. It is absolutely possible and even likely to find the same exact Tide Pods in their store at full price with no tag, three dollars less than full price with a tag, and five dollars less than full price with a tag. If the UPC is scanned then it will only charge the full price. Other items the UPC is locked out, like tortilla and potato chips. The fact they operate with multiple prices for the same damned item is pure insanity. As a customer I don't care if you bought twenty pallets at a cheaper price, figure out how to move the inventory on sale chain wide until you've sold 20 pallets worth then pull down the damn sale sign. But don't have literally the same manufacturer SKU/UPC at multiple prices with different internal SKUs. I don't understand how they get away with it at weights and measures audits either.

Big Lots uses a rather old POS system that is a dead end. It is an IBM system called IRES, it was designed almost 20 years ago as a "ground up" replacement for the rather legendary old IBM 4690 POS that dates back to the 70s and still runs most grocery stores, Walmart, Costco, and others (although with a touch screen GUI interface to make it more user friendly, even Costco is finally installing that GUI starting at their return desks). It went nowhere and afterwords IBM sold off their POS division to Toshiba. The new IBM IRES was LINUX based and was purchased for use at Big Lots, Gap Inc and subsidiaries, and the late Circuit City who never actually finished implementation. Circuit City only got it into about 100 stores before figuring out it would not work to their expectations (their ancient DOS type system literally ran everything in the store and could sell in real time nationwide including e-commerce - the lack of ability to process BOPIS before that term was coined doomed the rollout after they had spent over $250M on it and was pretty much the 2nd to last straw that pushed them to Chapter 11 as a nearly long term debt free company). The story of Circuit City spending a quarter billion and the system never working doomed it. Circuit City didn't have proprietary price tags and was able to use the IRES system.

Hobby Lobby has a NCR POS that hasn't been updated since 2013 and they have no intention of ever using product barcodes in the store (and since they've now "left the company to God" instead of the founders sons I'm not sure they'll ever change; supposedly the sons were just waiting to take over and modernize the heck out of the chain which it desperately needs). There is some sort of historical knowledge in the stores where they have the mistaken belief the company doesn't use barcodes for religious reasons and considers them to be the mark of the devil. This doesn't hold up for two reasons, one they have barcodes on most newer items as their warehouse uses them, and two because they take returns scanning the barcode on the receipt. They have a odd practice where they don't seem to care to itemize inventory beyond departmental level; they run backwards financially and the corporate office is the profit center while stores are cost centers. They can basically do whatever they want as long as they're private.

[storewanderer]

Big Lots switched to some NCR based system about 5 years ago. They were using the IBM/Toshiba you describe but they moved to some NCR system. Maybe some stores are still on the old system. As I recall they were able to do chip/tap cards on the IBM/Toshiba you describe so I was a little confused/surprised when they switched.

Big Lots back in the early to mid 00's had an even older system, it was basically looked like a cash register in an independent shop and it printed one of those skinny receipts and it just showed the department name and whatever you bought. They had a scanner that scanned the Big Lots price tag only. Signing the credit card slip was a joke because the receipt only had a line that was like 1.5 inches long. A bell went off whenever the cash drawer opened and of course there was a receipt journal in there. I remember it seemed odd as MacFrugals used IBM registers, so I didn't understand why Big Lots brought in such outdated registers. Well, I guess I do understand... Also, Hobby Lobby used those same registers before they got their NCRs but printed a fatter receipt.

I was recently talking to someone who spent 35 minutes in line to check out at Hobby Lobby (Easter weekend). I mentioned the lack of scanning and they didn't even notice that issue.

[BillyGr]

Big Lots doesn't have a system limitation. They intentionally block most UPCs except for the 5000 or so SKUs that are auto replenished and always full price. You'll find lots of situations where depending on age on shelf - or arrival date - the same exact item has multiple prices. It isn't always a missed price change although they seem to have the same problems with managing those as the Dollar stores who have been fined repeatedly for violations of weights and measures. It is absolutely possible and even likely to find the same exact Tide Pods in their store at full price with no tag, three dollars less than full price with a tag, and five dollars less than full price with a tag. If the UPC is scanned then it will only charge the full price. Other items the UPC is locked out, like tortilla and potato chips. The fact they operate with multiple prices for the same damned item is pure insanity. As a customer I don't care if you bought twenty pallets at a cheaper price, figure out how to move the inventory on sale chain wide until you've sold 20 pallets worth then pull down the damn sale sign. But don't have literally the same manufacturer SKU/UPC at multiple prices with different internal SKUs. I don't understand how they get away with it at weights and measures audits either.

Really, this is a combination of older style stores and what other stores do on a more limited basis.

Back before barcodes and scanning were common, stores tagged each item. I know at least one (smaller) store chain where they did exactly what you are seeing - if they got a new supply of item X and it was 3 cents more than previously, the new cans got marked with that higher price, but whatever was on the shelf stayed with the tags it had until it was sold. Thus, they didn't raise the price of the existing merchandise, just of the newly arriving items that cost more.
Obviously, that was much easier to do with tags than it is now with barcodes.

The other part is what stores often do - if they have items that are reaching a date they need to be sold by, the store will place a tag or sticker over the UPC code and put a manually entered price tag on that, so that others of the same item will still ring (by code) at regular price, but if you are willing to take the older items to clear them out, you get a discount.
In most places, they will put those "marked down" items in a separate spot, but otherwise that is really the only difference.

Not sure why it would be an issue, though - as long as each item is ringing up the price it is marked (be it by a tag, or using the UPC and a shelf tag with a price), that is what they'd be looking for to comply with rules - obviously there could be an issue if the employee screws up and rings the wrong tag, but that is the employee's mistake and they should be trained/reminded to pay attention to what to ring up (or, if the UPC scans, to check that it is bringing up the marked price, and correct if it is not).

[storewanderer]

I vaguely remember dealing some some stores that were not yet scanning in the early 90's and finding the same item with different prices depending what package you took. If you think about it this is actually a very clever way to rotate stock.

Big Lots has a separate markdown sticker that they put over the Big Lots price sticker for stuff close to expiration. It is a slightly larger Big Lots price sticker and says "sale" on it and you scan it and it gives a reduced price.