Community Chat

[haddon9]

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@viva923 wrote:

I may be in the minority here but this is a free country we can purchase what we want, when we want and do whatever we want to do with it. She returns items to the correct store I assume the items that have not been worn or sold and sent back. Sell it, throw it away, give it away.  She can do whatever suits her desire.

It may not be the most ethical or best choice but she can do what she wants with any item she purchases.

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@viva923   I agree with most of what you said except the returns.  It's not right to make so many returns and it will catch up with her.  

[Carmie]

@handygal2   You have the same shot as her friend does.  When merchandise hits the floor for sale, it is available for anyone and everyone.  If you want it, be there and buy it.

I know of no one who will look at a pair of their favorite and popular black pants and find 3 pairs in their size left and then buy all three pairs.  No one says, I should only buy one pair and give someone else a shot at the other two.

[Havarti]

I was a sales rep for many years and retailers were always upset about customers who sold online from their kitchen table while they paid for rent, heat, employees, etc.  The retailers wanted the company to not sell to the people with table top businesses and would complain to me often about it.  Companies could have policies, but when a customer met the criteria (resale number, tax ID, legitimate bill to/ship to locations, place minimum order, etc.) they could not discriminate and pick & chose who they wanted to sell to - any qualified buyer could buy the goods.  Once they owned the goods, they could do whatever they wanted with them...sell them at any price, give them away, throw them away, donate them, whatever they wanted to do...because they owned those goods.  The table top businesses could often sell for a lot less because they did not have the overhead of a retail store so they went for overall quantity sold rather that profit per item.  It hurt the dedicated retailers, but there was nothing the manufacturer legally could do.  It was how business was evolving with the introduction of online shopping.  

I remember hearing Jeff Bezos, in a TV interview long ago, telling how they worked the system at the beginning of Amazon (long before Prime).  He said when people would order a book they did not stock, they would then need to order that book from the publisher.  Publishers, like most companies, have minimum orders and a different minimum for free freight, so they would keep a list of seriously back-ordered books for each publisher (information they gathered by not being able to get certain books right away and inquiring about expected due date).  Then, when they needed books they did not stock at Amazon they would order what they needed - then complete the order to reach the minimum with books they knew could not be shipped...and then they would write on the order "cancel all back-orders".  So, if the minimum order to get free freight was 50 books and they needed 5 books to meet customers' needs, they would order 45 of a book they knew was on back order and not due for a long time and they would state on their order "cancel all back-orders".  The books they needed would ship right away and the others would eventually be deleted from the order automatically by the computer.  Amazon outsmarted the system by getting what they needed immediately, they met the minimum order required to place the order & get free freight, and they stopped the unwanted product from being shipped.  He said it rarely failed to work and they could not have successfully met customers needs without using that approach.  They followed the rules, yet found a way around the system to meet their needs.  

There seems to be more of this type of approach these days.  Most of us are accustom to people following the rules - including the intent and nature of those rules.  More people are learning to take advantage of every loop hole they can find.  It seems to be the way of the future.  Glad I lived most of my life when I did.

[SahmIam]

@handygal2 Then ALL retailers have to put a policy in place to stop reselling.

That's NOT going to happen. People purchase from Overstock.com and do the same thing. Amazon makes a mint with people purchasing boxes of returns from them and then RE-SELLING then on Amazon and ebay for a profit. Stop that too, I guess.

How about the YouTubers who are given gift cards to shop at Nordstrom prior to the BIG July sale in order to show off their items and then either return the WORN items to Nordstrom for a refund or sell them on Ebay or Poshmark and keep the money. Is that ok? Or who get THOUSANDS in PR and then sell it online and keep the money while you and I have to pay full price for the stuff; let's ban that too.

TJM also sells online so any shopper has access to the nice merchandise. In fact, my store is kinda boring and beige...nothing worth going for. But online? NICE stuff at great prices. 

Bottom line, it's how capitalism works. It keeps the money flowing. Is it fair? Ah, now that's the real question, isn't it. 

[handygal2]

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@Carmie wrote:

@handygal2   You have the same shot as her friend does.  When merchandise hits the floor for sale, it is available for anyone and everyone.  If you want it, be there and buy it.

I know of no one who will look at a pair of their favorite and popular black pants and find 3 pairs in their size left and then buy all three pairs.  No one says, I should only buy one pair and give someone else a shot at the other two.

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@Carmie : The way l look at it, if l buy 1 pair of the black pants in my size, 2 other women can also buy themselves a pair. Your friend is preventing all 3 of us from buying those pants we wanted. And she doesn’t even want them! 

[Bri369]

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@handygal2 wrote:

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@Carmie wrote:

@handygal2   You have the same shot as her friend does.  When merchandise hits the floor for sale, it is available for anyone and everyone.  If you want it, be there and buy it.

I know of no one who will look at a pair of their favorite and popular black pants and find 3 pairs in their size left and then buy all three pairs.  No one says, I should only buy one pair and give someone else a shot at the other two.

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@Carmie : The way l look at it, if l buy 1 pair of the black pants in my size, 2 other women can also buy themselves a pair. Your friend is preventing all 3 of us from buying those pants we wanted. And she doesn’t even want them! 

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Are you suggesting stores limit purchases to 1 item per person?  If I want to buy 10 pairs of black pants, I can.  

[Carmie]

@handygal2   Not my friend.  I am not the OP.

I know I buy as many items that I want when I shop.

I go to a grocery store in my area that has super low prices.  I was there once and bought every can of lump crabmeat they had on the shelf at $8 a can. I scored a bargain and it didn't occur to me to save some for others.

Who knows?  The next person might have done the same thing and bought all of them.

I often see Amish Ladies in there buying immense quantities of something that is priced super low.  Sometimes it is a frozen item...which makes me wonder where they store it with no freezers or electricity.

[Abrowneyegirl]

@Bri369 

Of course you can buy 10 pairs if you want them.  But if you are only going to buy them then return them out of season so the store suffers a loss than that is not great.

[Still Raining]

How can it be "immoral" (a term of judgement) if she is following all the legal rules?

The store could limit number of items or returns, but they do not.

However, she seems a little weird.

[handygal2]

@SahmIam , @Carmie : Target has a similar problem every time they have a designer collaboration. People charge into the store at the “opening bell,” and fill carts up to capacity with whatever merchandise they can get their hands on. Some work together in tag-teams.

Last time, I wanted to buy a couple of items for myself and family, but they were already gone. (I got to the store ten minutes after opening, on the first day of the promotion).

By the end of the day, about 1,000 of these items were already on eBay at double-to-triple the Target price!

I wrote an email to Target management, complaining about this problem. I got a response: They would look into limiting the quantity of the same item allowed for purchase— both at stores and online— to give shoppers like myself, looking for reasonably priced merchandise for my family, a fair shot.