Red Deer Independent - PM Policy

[Miss Tea Rose]

this week i got in on the good deals with points & price matching at the Red Deer Independent grocers(IG). The bacon was $3.00 at no frills and Independent had 3000 pc points on the bacon, so it worked out to be free bacon. But it turned out to be a double points event which gave 6000 pc points, so the bacon was free & made an additional $3.00. Very Nice. The activia yogurt was onsale at no frills $3.00 and independent had 2500 points so only 50 cents when you pm. Great. I did this offer and ended up with 6 bacons & 6 yogurts, paid $36.00 but earned 51,000 points, so it was free and made $15.00.
went back to do the same deals yesterday but they have changed everything. from now on you can no longer pm on any item that offers points, even a personal offer, no store promo, or anything. Now you can only price match 2 of any item , and you can no longer go through the checkouts with a 2nd or 3rd pm order. It sounded like you can only pm an item once per week but maybe it is once per day, they did not even know about that. They gave me a few options, I could either pm and get No points, not allowed to use my pc points card on my phone. OR i could pay full price and get the points using my pc card. So i choose to just pm the 2 of each other and not take any points because i also had coupons for the yogurt. But then when I went to pay for my order with my pc-mastercard (which yes is connected to my points card).they decided I could not do that because i might end up earning some points. OMG really. So they decided I could now only pay with Cash, debit or a different mastercard. that is when I gave them an option: you either pm or you don't. I told them that this was now too confusing, it would take too much time to try to sort out what items have points & would have to sort out if they met this n ew pm criteria, i also made it Very Clear that they were not going to tell me how I could or could not pay for my order. That is just wrong. I left my groceries and walked out & have no plans on going back - ever. I think they may be going against the loblaws payment policy, I should be allowed to use my pc mastercard at any of the loblaws different stores. They were so confused they did not know what they were doing and yet it is so simple, pm or not. They were fretting over a few pieces of bacon. Really, what a waste of my time that was. They may lose customers over this, How foolish to turn away customers in this economy which gets worse every month, with the increasing costs of food, not to mention a brand new co-op is opening soon right across the street from them. Don't they know that consumers can go pm up to 10 of any item at walmart, and do it several times in a day. we all know how walmart allows for & pays out overages, they don't freak out over things like this, they encourage shoppers and couponers, they welcomes price matching, they want to gain customers not lose them. Big Mistake Independent Grocers, in tough times you don't offend customers you try to retain them.

[SassyAshley]

To me this sounds like a store policy not a chain policy. I would contact there head office to let them know what is going on. A huge red flag for me would have been them not allowing me to pay with PC MC, as someone who does not have a PC MC but a MC with a different bank anytime I go into a PC store they try to convert me to a PC MC.

If a store takes MC they cannot tell you what MC you can use, actually I know of one No Frills that got in trouble for telling customers they only accepted PC MC from Head Office they will accept any MC, heck my local one now even accepts Visa to keep customers happy.

[Poirot]

Thanks for the huge warning.I was going go today for the bacon and buy some other stuff today too.I will definitely not be going now.You sure are right they could have turned bacon customers into regular customers.

[scouponer]

Well how are they going to know if you have a personal offer for an item. This is probably a case of a few ruining it for the rest. While you purchased reasonable amounts, I am sure there were a lot of people buying huge quantities in multiple transactions and now that has ruined the whole price matching thing for all. Not the first time it has happened and won't be the last. That being said they should have treated you better and it sounds like shopping there is going to be a nightmare for price matchers. With the price of groceries these days more and more people are price matching I foresee a bumpy ride for their customers! Hopefully cooler heads will prevail in the long run once this bacon deal is over. Sorry you had to experience this.

[maggiespice]

OP, people abuse the coupon system, so retailers are left with no choice but to enact polices so this does not happen. Surprised? Don't be as this will happen more and more as food prices climb higher and higher.

[thriftygranny]

Well said Maggiespice!!

[super807]

It sucks when a store changes policies abruptly like that. Makes it difficult to know what is okay and what is not.

A note though: Your Independent Grocer stores do not participate in price matching. If your individual location does so, it is a store decision to offer it, not a banner-wide policy. I could see how a store that on it's own chose to price match would feel the bite of that decision with the last flyer. There were awesome points promos in that flyer, but at YIG (and Loblaws stores, which also had those offers) those products were not on sale. And other YIG locations don't price match. If this store was price matching and giving points, it could have cost the owner quite a bit. RCSS and No Frills price match, but the Loblaws company has contracts with suppliers that include clauses where the suppliers pay for the difference in the price matching, not the stores. As YIG as a chain does not participate in the price match program, this store owner would not be getting reimbursed for the price differences, but absorbing it from his own profits.

Perhaps the offers this past week seemed really scary to this owner, and who knows how much the price matching has cost him over the past while, and perhaps the owner panicked. Unfortunately, decisions taken in moments of panic are often not well thought out and not communicated in a clear and cohesive manner.

[harley]

As super807 said YIG's are not part of the price matching program. So the fact that your store was matching in the first place was the owners effort at keeping customers as well as providing lower prices of competitors. Should have been a win win situation for everyone. Unfortunately there are people out there that screw it up for everybody just because they are greedy and abuse programs. Stores do make their own policies in some cases. At our store if purchasing what we deem is a large number of gift cards you would not be allowed to purchase them using a credit card, you must use debit or prove with sufficient picture ID that the credit card you are using truly belongs to you.