BillyGr wrote: ↑May 4th, 2024, 11:30 am
A couple of those things are built in intentionally.
The "deposit" for the cart gets the customer to return it to the rack (which most times are only by the store, unlike other stores that have spots around the lot), thus no need to pay someone to collect them, and therefore that salary saved can go into offering lower prices.
The single register is a similar situation - they have others who CAN run registers, but they are around the store stocking or doing other tasks, until a line develops. Then, the cashier working is supposed to hit the buzzer and someone else (not sure if they do different codes to call for one or more people) will stop what they are doing and come up to help check people out. There again saving costs (not paying a cashier to stand there waiting and a separate person to stock shelves) which also allows prices to be a bit lower (though also why they were known to pay a bit more than other places, as the employee was staying busier the entire time, but still less than paying two people).
I suspect that because they are being more efficient ringing items up, they focus on that more and thus are less likely to chat with customers as other cashiers may do, more than it just being those who work there being less friendly.
The last store I was in, I waited in a line halfway down an aisle. The transactions were fairly small and it moved fast enough that I didn't leave. A manager walked right past the long line stared at all of us and did nothing but walk off. Nobody cares.
When I paid, the customer in front of me (who had a cart) had her wallet on the little check writing platform next to the pinpad. I had two items. The cashier scanned my two items and put his hand on the check writing platform and moved her wallet to the side/corner of it and put my two items down on it. He then saw I was paying with a card and said to me "CARD" and motioned his head in the direction of the pinpad (which the other customer was still standing in front of trying to at this point get her change into her wallet now holding it instead of having it on the little counter space).
This retailer just has a lousy in store experience and lousy attitude. Trade off is yeah it is cheap. Okay, I give them that. It is cheapish. Seems to be getting less and less cheap. Or other retailers are getting more and more competitive. They are Dollar General of grocery. No way they are Southwest Airlines of grocery (that would be WinCo).
I visited a couple of stores today. Credit Card machines were down. They were only taking cash via handwritten signs on the door and in one store via a reminder every 5 minutes over the PA. The stock is running out differently at different stores, but it would best be qualified as fair to poor. They are mostly out of snacks, but frozen foods, packaged groceries, and even soda are all still in good supply. One store even still had some produce left. There are lots of odd items, like more of those light fixtures, which I just noticed today are, in fact, cameras. They also have pallets and pallets of boogie boards, like probably a few hundred per store. Lots of party supplies, medicine, and toys were left, too.
I drove by the D.C., and it's on the verge of shutting down. All the trucks and trailers are gone; there's one mule left and one trailer attached to their docks. They're gathering up fixtures in the D.C. parking lot and have a huge roll-up dumpster filled to the brim with what appears to be boxed merchandise.
HoustonRetail wrote: ↑May 4th, 2024, 7:51 pm
I visited a couple of stores today. Credit Card machines were down. They were only taking cash via handwritten signs on the door and in one store via a reminder every 5 minutes over the PA. The stock is running out differently at different stores, but it would best be qualified as fair to poor. They are mostly out of snacks, but frozen foods, packaged groceries, and even soda are all still in good supply. One store even still had some produce left. There are lots of odd items, like more of those light fixtures, which I just noticed today are, in fact, cameras. They also have pallets and pallets of boogie boards, like probably a few hundred per store. Lots of party supplies, medicine, and toys were left, too.
I drove by the D.C., and it's on the verge of shutting down. All the trucks and trailers are gone; there's one mule left and one trailer attached to their docks. They're gathering up fixtures in the D.C. parking lot and have a huge roll-up dumpster filled to the brim with what appears to be boxed merchandise.
Cash only during a liquidation sale... what could possibly go wrong?
In the stores that closed in April, during the last 10 days or so of the sale, they were using the "employee discount" function to take an additional percentage off the transaction, rather than having stuff scan at higher percentages off. One evening the part of the system that validates the employee discount ID went down/offline, and they were unable to do any transactions (stuff would still scan at the standard percentages off but it didn't match the signs in the store). This was for hours.
I wonder why the distribution center would throw out boxed merchandise (perhaps it is expired food or something) and wonder what happened to all of their trucks. I wonder if they filled the trucks up with whatever they could fit into them and drove it all back to California? And this boxed merchandise was leftover and they couldn't figure out a way to push it out to stores there in that area.
According to bankruptcy filings all stores will close by May 31. I feel like they have a lot of "hard sell" stuff left to liquidate.
HoustonRetail wrote: ↑May 4th, 2024, 7:51 pm
I visited a couple of stores today. Credit Card machines were down. They were only taking cash via handwritten signs on the door and in one store via a reminder every 5 minutes over the PA. The stock is running out differently at different stores, but it would best be qualified as fair to poor. They are mostly out of snacks, but frozen foods, packaged groceries, and even soda are all still in good supply. One store even still had some produce left. There are lots of odd items, like more of those light fixtures, which I just noticed today are, in fact, cameras. They also have pallets and pallets of boogie boards, like probably a few hundred per store. Lots of party supplies, medicine, and toys were left, too.
I drove by the D.C., and it's on the verge of shutting down. All the trucks and trailers are gone; there's one mule left and one trailer attached to their docks. They're gathering up fixtures in the D.C. parking lot and have a huge roll-up dumpster filled to the brim with what appears to be boxed merchandise.
Cash only during a liquidation sale... what could possibly go wrong?
In the stores that closed in April, during the last 10 days or so of the sale, they were using the "employee discount" function to take an additional percentage off the transaction, rather than having stuff scan at higher percentages off. One evening the part of the system that validates the employee discount ID went down/offline, and they were unable to do any transactions (stuff would still scan at the standard percentages off but it didn't match the signs in the store). This was for hours.
I wonder why the distribution center would throw out boxed merchandise (perhaps it is expired food or something) and wonder what happened to all of their trucks. I wonder if they filled the trucks up with whatever they could fit into them and drove it all back to California? And this boxed merchandise was leftover and they couldn't figure out a way to push it out to stores there in that area.
According to bankruptcy filings all stores will close by May 31. I feel like they have a lot of "hard sell" stuff left to liquidate.
Went back today, because I actually did want to buy stuff yesterday, but wasn't going to go to an ATM. Card machines are back up. I only went to one store, they had restocked the food as best they could. They're also stocking empty aisles with party supplies now. We had also been getting the employee discount, but this has stopped.
As for the D.C. it's almost definitely expired food. They were selling tons of Lofthouse Cookies and cupcakes, that were far past their prime. Literally growing mold, most of the candy is expired. I'm not really sure what the game plan was with keeping that food long enough for it to expire? I guess it just demonstrates some of the failings the chain was having.
I've started to carry more cash around due to all the credit card surcharging businesses I encounter now... didn't used to carry any and hate using cash. It is really bad in NV and parts of CA primarily around larger cities with independent restaurants. Don't notice much of it elsewhere yet.
I notice a lot of retailers with expiration issues on the thaw and sell bakery products. Target seems to have major problems with that especially in non PFresh Stores. Many of those are imported from Canada and I never noticed them selling at 99 Only.
Expired candy is interesting. I didn't pay too much attention to the candy but it sold down 3 days before closing here. I think some convenience stores showed up and cleared all beverages and snacks/candy once they went to extra 70% off about 4 days before final closure.
storewanderer wrote: ↑May 5th, 2024, 6:23 pm
I've started to carry more cash around due to all the credit card surcharging businesses I encounter now... didn't used to carry any and hate using cash. It is really bad in NV and parts of CA primarily around larger cities with independent restaurants. Don't notice much of it elsewhere yet.
I notice a lot of retailers with expiration issues on the thaw and sell bakery products. Target seems to have major problems with that especially in non PFresh Stores. Many of those are imported from Canada and I never noticed them selling at 99 Only.
Expired candy is interesting. I didn't pay too much attention to the candy but it sold down 3 days before closing here. I think some convenience stores showed up and cleared all beverages and snacks/candy once they went to extra 70% off about 4 days before final closure.
I have not noticed or encountered any expired or soon to be expired products at any "mainstream" stores in my area (including Target, Pavilions, Vons, Ralphs).
I ALWAYS find this in these price impact stores like Dollar General, 99 Cent, etc.
Never saw anything like this in the Rite Aid dockets.
Stupidness. Someone just ranting.
Any moron can send in anything to the court. Obviously a person who just pays someone else to handle his bookkeeping and doesn't understand even the most basic aspects of accounting. The courts have the books on hand and years of them, if there bribe payments like he accuses then they would have already found them and referred to the IRS and Justice Dept for prosecution... Not to mention that the banks would have sent in their forensic accounting people and torn the place to shreds.
storewanderer wrote: ↑May 5th, 2024, 6:23 pm
I've started to carry more cash around due to all the credit card surcharging businesses I encounter now... didn't used to carry any and hate using cash. It is really bad in NV and parts of CA primarily around larger cities with independent restaurants. Don't notice much of it elsewhere yet.
I notice a lot of retailers with expiration issues on the thaw and sell bakery products. Target seems to have major problems with that especially in non PFresh Stores. Many of those are imported from Canada and I never noticed them selling at 99 Only.
Expired candy is interesting. I didn't pay too much attention to the candy but it sold down 3 days before closing here. I think some convenience stores showed up and cleared all beverages and snacks/candy once they went to extra 70% off about 4 days before final closure.
I have not noticed or encountered any expired or soon to be expired products at any "mainstream" stores in my area (including Target, Pavilions, Vons, Ralphs).
I ALWAYS find this in these price impact stores like Dollar General, 99 Cent, etc.
I also found some at Sprouts an Trader Joes.
Target has not done well with date rotation in many stores I've visited. Their problem is they have too many hands on the food departments and they are not trained on proper "LIFO" stocking. Worse, their changes to their truck process several years ago make the situation worse as all items go direct from truck to floor, then overstock back to the back. In some stores it may be weeks or months before the shelves are depleted to the point where they pull overstock from the back room. Now the back room overstock is older than the goods on the shelf, and worse the shelf stockers are putting freshest in front so if you go back three or four items you find product that is months older and even expired. This is not every store but it is more common than not especially in the Orange County market. I've also seen some fantastic thaw and serve dates shared on social media, such as expires Feb 31, 2024.
