Misleading Advertising: Little White Lie or Down-Right Scam?
For those of you that haven’t heard, Albertsons is closing a lot of their stores across the country as part of a “Restructuring” plan. Of the 10 stores in Central Texas, Albertsons will be closing 6 stores, all in Austin. As part of their “Going Out of Business” sale, they are having employees stand beside all the major roads with big “60% Off” signs. This is driving an enormous amount of traffic to their stores. I went to one on Tuesday and there were only 3 parking spaces left in the entire lot. Sounds great? Read the fine print: Up To.
That’s right, the signs all actually said “Up To 60% Off”. The “Up To” was about ½ and inch tall compared to the 3 to 4 foot tall 60%. Once you walk in you see a sign that the 60% off only applies to greeting cards. Turns out, groceries are only 10% off. Still not too bad, except Albertsons prices without their special savings card are about 20% higher than the next store over. The fine print? The stores that are closing are no longer accepting any advertised Albertsons special, including the savings cards.
I walked around the store, trying to find some kind of deal to make my time finding a parking space worth-wile. This gave me the opportunity to overhear the other customers. Words like “Rip Off”, “Scam”, and “Outright Liars” echoed through out the store. There is another Albertsons only 2 blocks away, and it is NOT on the list of closures. Didn’t corporate realize they are not only affecting the stores that are closing but the image of all those stores that will remain open?
I saw another sign while I was walking: General Merchandise 40% off. Well, having two kids we go through garbage bags pretty fast. And extra Tupperware is always nice. The problem came in when Albertsons decided to pick and choose what General Merchandise actually meant. I believe they defined it as “Things no one ever buys anyway”. Why do I say this? Because Tupperware was not marked down, only the cheap knock-offs. The same held true for garbage bags. And I was not the only customer to see through this either, two mom’s towing along 3 kids each came within inches of attacking a poor stockperson because they felt they were being mislead.
I think there is definitely a moral to this story. Advertising sales and specials are great. MIS-advertising sales and specials is not. It is always sad to see a business go under, but you want to save as much good will from your customers as possible. Who know, maybe this time next year you want to re-open your doors. It would be nice to be able to draw off that pool of customers that supported you before.
That definitely will not happen if you treat them bad or make them feel like you were just out to get there money the first time around.
That’s right, the signs all actually said “Up To 60% Off”. The “Up To” was about ½ and inch tall compared to the 3 to 4 foot tall 60%. Once you walk in you see a sign that the 60% off only applies to greeting cards. Turns out, groceries are only 10% off. Still not too bad, except Albertsons prices without their special savings card are about 20% higher than the next store over. The fine print? The stores that are closing are no longer accepting any advertised Albertsons special, including the savings cards.
I walked around the store, trying to find some kind of deal to make my time finding a parking space worth-wile. This gave me the opportunity to overhear the other customers. Words like “Rip Off”, “Scam”, and “Outright Liars” echoed through out the store. There is another Albertsons only 2 blocks away, and it is NOT on the list of closures. Didn’t corporate realize they are not only affecting the stores that are closing but the image of all those stores that will remain open?
I saw another sign while I was walking: General Merchandise 40% off. Well, having two kids we go through garbage bags pretty fast. And extra Tupperware is always nice. The problem came in when Albertsons decided to pick and choose what General Merchandise actually meant. I believe they defined it as “Things no one ever buys anyway”. Why do I say this? Because Tupperware was not marked down, only the cheap knock-offs. The same held true for garbage bags. And I was not the only customer to see through this either, two mom’s towing along 3 kids each came within inches of attacking a poor stockperson because they felt they were being mislead.
I think there is definitely a moral to this story. Advertising sales and specials are great. MIS-advertising sales and specials is not. It is always sad to see a business go under, but you want to save as much good will from your customers as possible. Who know, maybe this time next year you want to re-open your doors. It would be nice to be able to draw off that pool of customers that supported you before.
That definitely will not happen if you treat them bad or make them feel like you were just out to get there money the first time around.
posted by Tom at 3:42 PM
2 Comments:
They are actually closing 10 out of 15 central Texas stores. And you're absolutely right in that the damage to their reputation will affect all of their stores, closing or not. Now I'm just wondering who's going to use all that real estate. ;o)
Wow..even more stores than I thought. I was just going with the numbers reported by www.kvuenews.com.
Thanks for the update!
Post a Comment
<< Home