coupon fail

Joined: 14 Jul 2006 Posts: 583

Soooo, softlines folks--did you guys suffer any drama with the juniors' coupon fiasco?

I'm guessing that Sears teamed up with Seventeen magazine to offer a $10 off coupon that had little restrictions to it. They also (stupidly) offered the coupon on sears.com.

So, we got orders to stop taking the sears.com coupon because of obvious abuse. I did have the great pleasure of telling two women that, no, they could not use one coupon per item. They came in with a stack of coupons, got a load of clearance, and actually tried to use one coupon per clearance item--even items under $10! Greedy bastards.

Those kinds of people are the reason we had to deny sears.com coupons from potentially legit customers.

Now, I think Sears should post signs that say..."One coupon per CUSTOMER or HOUSEHOLD." That would cut down abuse, IMO.

We aren't Wally World. I would definitely remember if someone tried to abuse that policy.

Joined: 21 Sep 2003 Posts: 686

Vickers....yep...had the same thing happen in my store. There was a retraction sign in sign riter yesterday(or Thurs.?) that I had JUST posted at ALL the cashwraps when they paged me to a cashwrap.When I got there 1 customer had the counter piled with clrx. and a hand full of the coupons off the internet,and the woman she was with had a buggy full of stuff with another handful of coupons.Explained to them that it was intended to be one coupon per purchase and because of abuse Sears had retracted the coupon that was online.They argued with me and I finally said "Sears has the right to retract any offer if there is abuse of it,and per this sign the offer has been retracted." They wanted to use ONE coupon,and I had to tell them that coupon had been voided and was invalid. They both left without buying anything.Oh well ! Were we wrong in not putting limits or restrictions on the coupon? Yes.....but that's what retractions are for! Do people really think that if we had a tv in an ad and the price was misprinted that we would honor it? Things happen and if we didn't have all these "opportunity customers" out there that see a chance to abuse/take advantage of something then we wouldn't have to retract an offer from the legit customers.Reminds me of the coupon we had awhile back in HI where people were coming in and buying $6 items with a $5 coupons.Before they stopped it we had a guy in 71 that was tied up forever with a customer ringing one item at a time with a fistful of coupons.I have to laugh though....didn't we learn ANYTHING from THAT coupon fiasco? Guess not?

Joined: 01 Feb 2008 Posts: 545

You said if the printed price was wrong would you have to honor it on a tv. Yes, you bet you would have to honor it. I know in my state if you didn't not only would our local consumer tv personality give Sears tons of bad press but letters to the Better Business Bureau would also be going out about illegal bait and switch tactics. THAT is why there is someone at your corporate marketing department which is supposed to verify all coupons and promotions before they are submitted for publication. I know if I had anything in writing without any type of limitation I would have been able to use the coupon. You may have been able to thwart one or two customers but anyone savvy enough to call your company on their false advertising would have gotten a deal. All it takes is one attorney wanting to shop in your store to be turned away. Yet another class action lawsuit for Sears.

You should have honored at least one of the coupons since they were indeed printed out. Is it the customers fault that your company screwed up? No, it's not. Do you need every single dollar in this failing economy from sales? I bet you do. I know my company does. I know many Sears stores are closing all over the country. How can you turn away business because your company screwed up?

Joined: 14 Jul 2006 Posts: 583

People shouldn't be rewarded for attempting to be greedy bastards.

Those women KNEW what they were doing was wrong. They were so damn smug about it.

Um, it was from my understanding that if something was printed in error, we are protected by law and can retract it.

Companies retract coupons all the time. Besides, we are still honoring the coupon from the magazine...we are just limiting customers from coming in and using ten gazillion or more coupons. I still think they should allow one coupon per household, though.

Joined: 05 Jul 2008 Posts: 168

Vickers, you are right that the merchant has a right to limit or refuse advertised items or coupons when an error has been made.They do this by posting disclaimers which explains the error. Sometimes the companies will sell a few items at the advertised wrong price until the disclaimer is posted. The consumer protection laws use language that state if a price in error on the subject matter is able to be an obvious error by reasonable consumer, than the merchant does not need to honor the price. (ie; Best Buy and the t.v. sales on the internet. The price was an obvious mistake and yes, there was some bad press but at the same time many people out there knew that was too good to be true. Just because the person believes they are entitled to be enriched at the detriment of someone else for a mistake, does not make it so)

The bait and switch is only relevant when a company or business advertises subject matter in which they have no intention of selling and the act was intentional. That is not an error and is a whole different bag of worms.

I live in an area of the country where fraud is rampert on all levels and we were not allowed to accept internet coupons, whether from corporate or not. That decision was made after alterations from computer savy crooks took advantage of technology. That decision came from up above, including recommendations from upper management with loss control.

Some coupons without mistakes allow the business the right to refuse or participate, example: McDonald's offering a coupon for free coffee..not all locations may participate. The coupons may have that stated in microscopic print. I am refering to coupons without errors in this example.

Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 1636 Location: Michigan

Don't be looking at the tree ....... look at the forest.

Another "oops" like this illustrates the effects of Eddie's no-cash infrastructure of SHC. We've seen the same outcomes on the salesfloors of both Kmart and Sears.

After looking at the Shareholder Meeting articles over at NARSE, one of Eddie's "big ideas" towards plugging the holes in the hull of the SHC boat is centered on customers using the web, not only as a direct commerce connection but, as a way of driving footsteps to the stores themselves. If a "coupon" sales-driver like this, simple as it really is, causes this much confusion, does it send customers -- once again -- the wrong message? The fine print seems to be where they consistently trip over their own shoelaces, and if you look close enough, it is the single method they use to generate the most cash from customers. They thrive on those little details being able to get a customer to buy extra accessories, postpone a timely delivery, and biggest of all, lure them into the dark web of the credit black widow.

Think those web designing companies aren't feeling the squeeze of Eddie's iron fist? The remnants of the "old regime" that Eddie embraces (and counts on) continue to attempt to push their agenda on others, believing that they are back in the 1970s: we can tell you what to do because we are "Sears", like the ploy used by WalMart today. Do the names Martha Stewart and Bob Vila ring a bell? Wasn't SHC trying to "negotiate" little tweaks in their contract obligations? We know clearly from those skirmishes that SHC was purely trying to not outlay the cash that was due. Hmmm, why could that be? The SHC machine keeps thinking, in the IT case, that it is another in-house operation that it can impose any number of restrictions upon and the peon programmers just have to take it.

But it goes a little deeper than that. I'm surmising, by all of these examples of web-whoopses, that the IT company is simply doing the coding work, and are getting the content from a SHC designer. If we apply the SHC model of hiring for executives to the other levels of the company, you could understand why they would need someone from the outside to do the 95 yards of the 100 yard dash. So what we're looking at is: the 5 yards is where the problem seems to be coming from.

A sizable share of blame can be laid at the feet of the web company as well. How hard is it to recognize the huge holes that were exploited, by a properly educated or experienced web designer? "Grill for babies" and the best example "manage my home" (or whatever it was called) are huge faux-pas. BUT! If that "expertise" is not being PAID FOR, then the web company is simply doing what they are asked.

If SHC prefers the salesfloors of Sears and Kmart to be populated by part-time retail inexperience, doesn't it appear that same flawed thinking is applied elsewhere?

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