Yesterday I let two HUGE deals go. Let’s look at the deals first, and then the reason I let them go…
My Shoppers Drug Mart had a certain meat jerky (beef and pork) on sale from $8.99 to $2.99. In addition to this, if you bought 2 bags you got 2,000 points, on top of this, I had 2 good Optimum bonuses, 18,500 on $100 and 7,000 on $45. In the store there was about 140 bags of jerky.
Suppose I bought 34 bags with the $100 deal, and 16 bags with the $45 deal.
For the first one, it costs me $101.66 (no tax). In return I get 1,010 regular points, 18,500 bonus points and 34,000 promotion points.
For the second one, it costs me $47.84. In return I get 470 regular points, 7,000 bonus points and 16,000 promotion points.
So the total is $101.66 I would get 76,980 Optimum points, which is $137.71. So for $-36.05 I would get $449.50 worth of jerky.
Had I bought all the jerky, which I debated, I would have paid $418.60 and gotten back 169,518 points ($303.27), so $115.43 for $1,348.50 in jerky.
I did buy 20 bags for about $10 after points, so roughly $180 worth of jerky for $10, which is still Boom! Savings!
The second deal was Lindor chocolate bars. This one is more of a rough approximation, but the story is still a good one…
I found 53 Lindor chocolate bars (normally $4.79+tax) selling for an average of $1+tax. They also came with a bonus, buy 3 get 1,000 points. If I used my bonus coupon from above (“Gavin – you don’t get to use it twice!” – I know, but these are all hypotheticals) I would get 7,000 points on $45.
Let’s math it out: The cost would be $59.89 ($53+tax) and the points received would be: 530 base points, 7,000 bonus points and 17,000 bonus points. The value of points would be $43.88. So $286.87 worth of chocolate bars would have been mine for about $16.
I did end up buying a dozen. 🙂 So Boom! Savings! just the same 🙂
Why didn’t I take full advantage of these deals?
For the first one, the store was trying to sell a dozen bags on clearance, but they changed the price of the entire stock, so they had made a mistake. They made a similar mistake in the summer and I bought $2,966 worth of cold, flu and allergy medicine for $5 (it doesn’t get any more Boom! – Savings! than that!). SH pointed out that they had made the same mistake. I went in, and talked to the Night Manager, and he said there was nothing he could do to stop me. Another Manager had asked me (after the drug score) to ask whenever I saw a deal that looked too good if it was really meant to be a deal. I told her I would. I told them I would buy a few bags (20) and come back the next day (today) and if the price wasn’t changed I would buy them all. (The changed them, so I bought the 12 they were actually trying to clear).
For the second one, it was just a fudge up on the part of one of the staff. They had dropped the prices to clear a few remaining bars. Someone took down the sale stickers and they restocked the shelf, but forgot to change the price in the system! I asked the Night Manager “Is X going to catch sh*t over this?” and the answer was yes. So, again I bought a few (12) and said I would be back today to buy the rest if the price hadn’t changed. They changed the price before I got to the register (but still honoured my 12).
So why didn’t I do it? It just would have gotten people in trouble, and honestly, jerky and chocolate isn’t really something anyone needs. Had either of these been baby formula or toothpaste I would have taken full advantage. Also I warned them: I got them on the drugs, I gave them a break on the jerky, but since they now know that I know how it is working if they want to continue doing it this way I will take advantage of this any time in the future. I didn’t get it in writing, but they agreed that this was fair. 🙂
There is no need to get people in trouble, especially if you read through this blog and see the countless (countful?) number of times they have helped me: negotiated on expiring goods, tipped me off to items going on clearance and even straight up given me a box full of children’s toys and games to give to charity.
I have a dislike for big business (look up the salary of the CEO of SDM and you’ll know why). But in these two cases I’d be beating business at the expense of the happiness of front line staff who have gone out of their way to help me. It just doesn’t come out as winning in the end.
For those itching for a story about a “normal type” good deal, here is something I took advantage of! I bought 5 packs of pepperettes for $0.99 instead of $9.99! Boom! Savings!
Happy shopping, happy savings, happy giving…