Walmart Dumbassery

So I was at Walmart today to purchase a couple of things. I encountered some truly dizzying dumbassery in not one, but two places. For reference, this was at the Sage Hill Walmart in Calgary.

First, I was buying cat litter. So I get to the cat liter section and what do I see? Well, take a boo at this:

Not carefully the top of the Slide box. Yup, that’s right. They’ve shoved it onto a shelf whose frontage space is shorter than the box is tall. I wonder what putz thought that was a good idea. To add insult to injury, the next shelf down does have enough space and in the position below, they have one of the smaller sized boxes (like the ones to the right of the Slide box in the picture).  Basically, whoever was setting up the shelves is <bleep> stupid.

But remember I said there were two cases? Well, take a look at this one (click on the image for full size so you can actually see the details):

Pay particular attention to the sale tags which read “2 for $3”. You’ll note they list the regular price as $1.67 and also proudly proclaim “Save 34¢ each”. This must be some kind of new math which I have not previously encountered. By my calculation, “2 for $3” means $1.50 each. Compared to the regular price, that is a 17¢ saving on each, or a total saving of 34¢. So, to the geniuses at Walmart, which is it: do I get 2 for $3 or do I save 34¢ each? It can be one or the other. Not both.

In the second case, I wasn’t actually buying the product so I didn’t bother trying to argue with them about it. I also didn’t have time to spend an hour arguing with bored store representatives to get them to understand why it was a problem.

The first problem is actually less problematic than the second one since in the first case, you know that they got the boxes in so there must be a way to get them out. And they had the correct price tags in place. The second one, however, probably has legal implications given that they are advertising two different sale prices for the same item. I wonder how often that particular error pops up (listing the total saving as though it is for each item).

Anyway, the moral of this story is that you should pay attention to price signs in stores. There’s a good chance I could have got that “2 for $3” item for the actual price of “2 for $2.66” which is what it would have to be to save 34¢ on each of the pair.

The other moral is for people who are stocking shelves and people who decide what the shelf layout should be. Make sure you put items on shelves where they can be properly accessed. There’s nothing more annoying that wanting to buy an item and having to solve a puzzle in order to get it off the shelf. That means the shelf needs to have front clearance to easily remove the item from the shelf, including any rotation that would typically occur and space for the customer’s hands. That means you can’t put a six pack of soda bottles on a shelf that has just a couple of millimetres clearance, either, but even that is better than the nonsense depicted above with the cat litter.

Welp, that’s all for now, folks.

 

2 thoughts on “Walmart Dumbassery”

    1. Do I really?

      For the record, they still have the cat litter set up in the same dumbass way eight months later.

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