OK: I spent 33% of my Sunday doing nothing but take backs. Mostly perishable goods. As I was doing this arduous procedure, it occured to me how many times my hourly employees might be tempted to just take the cold and frozen food back to its place, instead of the claims dept. which is where it belongs. Buying and eating take-back items returned to the cooler or freezer sections makes people sick, I've learned from experience.
The work of doing this, of itself, is bad enough.....But this problem has increased seriously 100 fold since I've been with my store.
BEST BUY has a re stocking fee, and it seems to work for them; why souldn't grocery retail?
We have so many its insane. Cakes is our high dollar one..ppl know if they complain,they get it free plus 10 dollar gift card. had one person bring back one slice of cake,four days after it was made,said its was too hard. Got all his money back. This crap goes on all the time. why? cause they can. W/ cakes I think a down deposit should be in place, and a restocking fee for the rest of the store would be great. They would whine at first, but quickly get over it.
YES! I like your thinking. Some .080% of my returns were from Bakery; I always take them straight to claims to be trashed. And yes, cakes and other pasteries are $$ losses. It's crap. At some point, all of grocery retail is gonna have to muscle up and draw a line.
OK: I spent 33% of my Sunday doing nothing but take backs. Mostly perishable goods. As I was doing this arduous procedure, it occured to me how many times my hourly employees might be tempted to just take the cold and frozen food back to its place, instead of the claims dept. which is where it belongs. Buying and eating take-back items returned to the cooler or freezer sections makes people sick, I've learned from experience.
The work of doing this, of itself, is bad enough.....But this problem has increased seriously 100 fold since I've been with my store.
BEST BUY has a re stocking fee, and it seems to work for them; why souldn't grocery retail?
I want THOUGHTS on this problem, please.
IF you're a Walmart comanager as I have read in previous posts or assume you are one I understand what you mean. The thing i've noticed with Walmart is they will have a cart full of persishable items. What they should of done with the Walmart Greeters they got rid of to just have them return persihables during their entire 8 hour shift. This would say the company hundreds of thousands ir not more.
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My Views and Opinions do not reflect that of the Kroger company. I'm an indivdual expressing my 1st amendment right.
We have so many its insane. Cakes is our high dollar one..ppl know if they complain,they get it free plus 10 dollar gift card. had one person bring back one slice of cake,four days after it was made,said its was too hard. Got all his money back. This crap goes on all the time. why? cause they can. W/ cakes I think a down deposit should be in place, and a restocking fee for the rest of the store would be great. They would whine at first, but quickly get over it.
Really? We hardly ever have cakes or other bakery items returned. Our managers are usually pretty cool with siding with the employee if they know the employee wasn't at fault. If it's a case where the customer is trying to get something for nothing they'll prefer to have the decorator make the customer a new cake rather than give them their money back. By doing that, the store is only out the wholesale cost of the two cakes. For example, if a cake retails for $17.99 but only costs the store $5.00 to make they're still making $7.99 off that one customer. ($17.99-2 cakes@ $5.00 a piece to make=$7.99) If the employee isn't at fault and the customer just wants to try and get something for free, they do not get a gift card.
I have seen the manager let them keep the cake they are complaining about, pick out cupcakes,ect. then give them a 10$ gift card. The reason they do this in our store is b/c most of them are on food stamps(not that theres anything wrong w/that) so when they pay w/ stamps, then complain and get a gift card, thats ten dollars for beer/ciggs, or whatever that they didnt have. And word has deff. gotten around.
Our policy is always return cold and freezer items where they belong if the customer didn't want them at checkout.
Other items pile up with other go backs.
No wonder I've been food poisoned by all three Krogers in my town over the years......I stopped buying cold/frozen food from there a long time ago.
What he is saying that when a customer doesn't want a perishable such as frozen, meat, cheese, etc they are to return it to the department immediately. Other goods such as cereal, chemicals, etc pile up in the go back baskets to return to the shelf. If a customer grabs a persishable such as beef and they're walking around the store for 30 minutes it'll be fine.
-- Edited by AnonymousCutter on Sunday 28th of October 2012 12:09:59 PM
__________________
My Views and Opinions do not reflect that of the Kroger company. I'm an indivdual expressing my 1st amendment right.
I think each department should take back their own take backs and not the front end. We have so many they siting in carts and baskets sometimes for days on end until management forces everyone to help.
