SDM - Should I be angry?

[thien_nga]

Thanks everyone for your inputs

Well, to me, Optimum Point is 99% of the reasons I shop at SDM, don't you think so? Let's say, on 20x the points, I'd rather pay 3.99$ for Arm and Harmer instead of waiting till Sunday and Monday for 2.99$, so if they offer this, their marketing department should know that all of us CAN THINK and take advantage of this point offer. Well, I'm upset about people selling stuff they get from this offer, what a shame! But on the other hand, once you buy something, you own them and you can do whatever with it!

I'm not gonna return all these tubes if they take my points away, I do buy them for what I really need them for, I'm just so sad that I love SDM with all my heart, love Optimum Program, and I feel like I'm being treated by criminal, I purchase anything I could at SDM, from bananes, strawberry, hamburger, gift cards, bus tickets, any thing. Was thinking of buy about 5000$ in GC again this year, but I feel so down!!!

[tjthemanto]

Something tells me , they still won't learn from this and we will still have a couple of more fiascos like this before the year end , especially during X'Mas.

[GeorgiaK]

If Walmart sells the same product you could price match there instead of unfortunately getting treated like a criminal at Shoppers.It was very nice of you to buy all those wipes for your friends.

However, she bought them at Shoppers in order to benefit from the bonus points offer. I seriously doubt that many people (not only op) would have bought 20, 30, 60 tubs without the enticement of the bp offer.

Full disclosure: I bought 3 tubs and 3 refill packs since I have a two-yr old in diapers.

[CrazyQT]

Wipes go on sale at SDM quite often for that price. Never are the shelves cleared because they are a "good price". Add in bonus points it's a whole new ball game.

IMO anyone that bought 20+ because it was a "good price" isn't being truthful and just wanted the points which is perfectly fine but just admit it.

[chriscfgb]

The name of this site is Smart Canucks. If stores leave a loophole that big - while aggravating for the consumers trying to get in, are the ones who do take advantage in the wrong? No - because they're playing within the rules.

And it's not just the consumer.

During the Kraft promotion on chocolate, one such store owner recognized this. Kraft was redeeming Shoppers for the points, as is standard during these promos. The owner ordered 12,000 chocolate bars and *blatantly advertised the loophole*.

He was redeemed in full by Kraft for all points earned.

Look, I realize that morally speaking, large volumes of consumers taking wide advantage may hurt the company in question. Kraft is rumored to have lost $3,000,000 during the chocolate bar fiasco.

But that's why they pay their marketing people well. Kraft and Huggies are not small companies. The fact they couldn't see the forest for the trees isn't the fault of a single income family who sees a great opportunity to catch a break on products that are necessities (wipes). Wipes don't go bad for a long time, so as long as they don't go to waste, I fail to see the problem.

The only consumers who are stepping over the line are those who use these for personal profit in the kijiji sense. But it's hard for me to cast my judgmental wand too strongly; because we're judging in a vacuum. I don't know anything about the person. For all I know is that they came from a tough background, with little education, and found a way to make rent this month as they try to come up with next month's plan.

My point here I guess is that the companies likely did not do this to cause you personal grief. They didn't do it to aggravate you. They did it as part of some marketing strategy. And they had to know; much as I'm sure Nestea did, what the repercussions were. And consumers each acted in their own way. We might not like it because it doesn't work within our own set of morals, but ... to each their own.

[Poirot]

Save On Foods used to have years ago lots of bonus deals advertised on the shelf.For example 2 roll Brand A papertowel was $1.99 price then the next week the price was $2.99 you get 100 bonus points.Shoppers Drug Mart chose to have a great sale price and great amount of bonus points at the same time.Shoppers Drug Mart could limited to how many bonus points a person could get when the promotion started.I think Shoppers Drug Mart causes themselves problems.I have never bought any Huggies wipes ever.

[kidsteph]

I too bought alot of Cadbury in September in my Port Perry store - the cashier (who is my neighbour's son) learned how to earn points from that promo, and recently told me the next day he went into the next big town (Oshawa) and cleared out as much chocolate as possible at other SDMs and got about 300 bars and lots of points and redeemed them for several hundreds $ in merchandise. So even the SDM employees were taking advantage of the promo.

[debragirl31]

I believe even that his list, would be considered a breach of the Privacy Act!

I completely agree. If SDM's marketing folks aren't smart enough to figure out that we can read and perform basic logical analyses on their offers by now, they need to limit them, and honour them, in any event, to whatever limit (or lack thereof) that they impose/fail to impose.

I was lucky enough to find a bunch of wipes (which will be donated, apart from a few boxes I'll keep for makeup removers, not that it's relevant to SDM), paid for them (thereby fulfilling my side of the contractual obligation) and if they were to claw back my points after the fact, I would be livid.

The monetary value of the points would be irrelevant; it's the principle of the matter that would be the issue. Being me, and having only rarely encountered a windmill at which I was not prepared to tilt, I would likely file in Small Claims Court for the simple (albeit petty!) satisfaction of making them spend time and resources to respond.

Contract law is pretty simple stuff when it comes to retail; of course they always have the right to limit quantities, but they have to do it at the time, and in the store (and preferably in the flyer AND the store, but in any event there would need to be some mechanism to tell the cashier "you can't sell more than n of item whatever to a single person" and notify the customer of that limit), not after you have completed the transaction! Once you've sold something, you don't get to go back and say "Whoops! I didn't mean to give you X, I'm taking it back now and tough s**t if you don't like it!", if that was the case, no one would be able to carry on basic commercial transactions with any degree of assurance.

The manager may have just been trying to warn you, I don't know what the "tone" of the exchange was, but I'd post on FB about it regardless and have them follow up. If they're going to treat you like a criminal, there's no reason not to vote with your wallet and shop elsewhere.

[torontogal12]

OP why did the manager bring up this list? How can others know if they are on the list too? Is the manager just trying to scare you? There's been a lot of hysteria around the chocolate promo.


My full disclosure: I'm allergic to chocolate :D

[jezz]

ROFL....I love the full disclosure...here's mine...

I totally missed out on the chocolate deal...if I had, in any way, been reading SC properly I would have cleared those dang shelves and stuffed myself full of chocolate bars! I'm seriously only angry at the empty shelves because someone else beat me to it! Ok...reality is I probably would have gone for about 20-30 and not hundreds simply because of the "fat" factor.

Kudos to the SDM manager who ordered so many for his store. Love that!

If Cadbury lost $3 M on this deal maybe they should pay one of us to look it over next time before they put it out there....I wouldn't charge nearly that much.
Ditto for the baby wipes...if I could figure out how to use those wipes I would have gotten loads (no baby...no make-up....therefore no wipes). I was even considering donating them but when I saw the empty shelves I was more then happy that some couponer is using them.

I mostly feel left out of the great bargains when I miss them so next time .... just leave me a few bars!!

My newest pet peeve in town is someone is finding our booklet coupons and tearing the coupons out...leaving the booklets sans coupons. GRRRRR!! I need a list for these kinds of people. Just dang well take them alllllll instead of leaving the reminants!!! My heart races a bit when I see the booklets then plummets when there are no coupons attached.

J

[anastasia1009]

My full disclosure: I'm allergic to chocolate :D

Finally someone else allergic to chocolate. I rather skittles than chocolate since I break out in hives.

[FallenPixels]

I got this in my weekly flyer email and thought of this thread

[connieharrison]

when there is a sale at my local No Frills there is a limit but people just send family members back in for more especially for pop Tons of it goes in vans so I think it will be resold

[torontogal12]

We see that all the time. Mom gives the 10 year old the cash and the kid is the customer. More full disclosure: mom sometimes made me do this too when I was 10 lol!

when there is a sale at my local No Frills there is a limit but people just send family members back in for more especially for pop Tons of it goes in vans so I think it will be resold

[thien_nga]

And they're gonna repeat this fiasco again with Jamieson? OMG!