this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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Galen West’s strategy: “Lookie dem low prices… 2L soda for 68¢… woweee!!1!” REALITY: Zero stock, ZERO SHIPMENTS for ENTIRE SALE. (i.postimg.cc)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by rekabis@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
34 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This is why Galen West is a card-carrying member of the Parasite Class.

And yes, I confirmed the no-shipments, zero-stock with the store manager. 5 days and counting with no stock so far, when the sale started there was maybe 12-24 bottles for 128,000 residents in the city.

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[–] SpermHowitzer@sh.itjust.works 13 points 10 months ago

Not that I’m disagreeing with your anger, but I feel like that much emotion at least warrants using the person’s correct name.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Never known someone to care about pop this much

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 48 points 10 months ago (3 children)

It’s not about the soda, it’s about the corporate hypocrisy, gratuitously fake goodwill, rampant greed, and bait-and-switching of hard-working Canadians.

If you’re going to be defending Galen West in any way, I strongly suggest you find elsewhere to be licking those boots.

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've found most stores stock very minimal amounts of whatever gets I to the flyer as a pretty good deal.

They just do it to trick you into making the trip so you spend your money on the over priced stuff since you're already there.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Except in this case, the store was out of stock 24hrs a day from the day the sale started. It’s now the sixth day of the sale, it ends on Thursday.

Those shelves usually have about 48 rows of 7 bottles across 5 different flavours of PC Cola. It tends to have some stock at all times, the only time I ever saw it totally out of stock was during the first COVID lockdown. Never before, and for the first time since.

I had talked to the store manager, who confirmed ZERO DELIVERIES since the sale started. Not one delivery in any of the five days, and I’m betting this sixth day will be more of the same.

That isn’t just gross incompetence - it’s intentionally malicious.

[–] gila@lemm.ee 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Surprised to hear Canada doesn't have laws against bait advertising, I know the UK, Australia & New Zealand all do.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They're provincial laws but I'm pretty sure that's not covered by the law since it's pretty much impossible to prove it was intentional/it affects all stores.

[–] gila@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Unintentional bait advertising is just exploitation via neglect rather than with intent. Here if the bait advertising happened and customers were exploited, the retailer is legally obligated to remediate regardless of their intent.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Considering they give rain checks I don't think much can be done, how do you prove they intentionally had a sale on a product they knew was going to be out of stock vs any other sales where something just naturally goes out of stock as people buy all the store's supply until they get more in the next few days?

[–] gila@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

It's a prerequisite requirement on promotions. Any company that wants to promote their sales needs to do so in accordance with relevant consumer law, which means ensuring they have available stock for the promotion before starting it.

It's not as if retailers in this environment just say "well, it's a potential risk for us to promote something if we don't actually have enough stock to consistently offer it at that price, so we just won't promote anything". Of course, promotions are beneficial for sales either way, so they just make sure they have enough stock before doing the promotion. The requirement doesn't stop them from running effective sales promotion without intent to exploit.

They aren't at some risk of blank cheque liability resulting from this, they just have a legal responsibility to ensure appropriate resolution case-by-case. Often that just means offering a raincheck, so the outcome isn't even different in Canada. But there's a difference where in Aus the raincheck solution is secured by consumer protections, rather than the retail company policy.

Overall it's not hugely impactful legislation, just the company bears the consequence of their own mistakes in the unintentional bait advertising circumstance and whaddaya know, bait advertising is mysteriously not a problem anymore in pretty much all western countries outside NA

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca -3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Deliveries are usually done once a week and flyers aren’t typically store specific

But I appreciate they needed pop so badly that they checked every day and talked to the manager

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Deliveries are usually done once a week

Sorry, no. I see those racks being re-stocked at least twice a week under normal circumstances. There are 3-5 full trucks coming in each and every day to this particular RCSS. This is not a tiny town, we have more than a quarter-mill residents in the overall region, about half of which live within city limits.

But I appreciate they needed pop so badly that they checked every day and talked to the manager

You can turn that negative sarcasm off, now. I was making a comment about the Parasite-Class greedwashing first and foremost, the fact that it was soda was just incidental.

And when soda is normally $1.50 to $2.00 per 2L (yes, even the PC cola stuff), it’s a pretty big deal when it’s 68¢ apiece.

Plus, we’ve been out of soda for a month-plus now. Just wanted to stock up for the next half a year (and have some at Christmas) at that price. Is it wrong to take advantage of a deal and have something special to drink for Christmas?

[–] gila@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

National retailers here do weekly flyers by state - usually one each for regional and metropolitan area stores per state. As long as they haven't overextended locations beyond that which they can reliably supply to, it's really not hard to ensure availability for a product before you put it on sale, or vary the sale conditions according to availability in a way that's totally fair to consumers.

In areas too remote for reliable supply to a national chain location, e.g. remote Western Australia, you just have co-operative independent retailers with their own prices. There needs to be a certain level of suburbia before a national retailer location becomes viable

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

As an aside, his name is Galen Weston

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Isn't there an ongoing strike at Loblaws distribution centres? I legitimately can't find any news as to whether it ended, but I also can't find very much news on other strikes that I'm pretty sure did get resolved. Fuck Loblaws, and fuck Google's ever worsening search capabilities.

[–] nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Isn't there an ongoing strike at Loblaws distribution centres?

Sounds like a great time to issue a sale on products that you know you won't have to actually sell at the discounted price, and then blame it on the union.

[–] Truck_kun@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Do stores do rain checks there if you ask for them?

I've seen it at some stores in the US in the past, but not something that would be advertised, just some people getting a rain check if they specifically ask for it.

[–] jnb@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago

Yes but it varies store to store. you could also submit a corporate complaint and hope they reply with a coupon of some sort...

[–] Venat0r@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Maybe they resolved it the same way they did a year ago: https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/layoff-notices-served-to-nearly-all-unionized-workers-at-calgary-loblaw-distribution-centre-union-1.6162044

Not sure about in this instance, but I usually find duck duck go is better than google now.

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

If they're so concerned about cost savings, they should consider firing Galen Weston. The amount of money wasted on paying him is astronomical. Pack his box and show him the door. He won't be missed by anybody.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I could only find old articles about resolutions, or the more recent articles from a month ago when it started. I'm not sure anymore if this is Google's fault - it seemingly hasn't been reported on since it started. Too much news about strikes might give the population too many ideas.

[–] Treczoks@kbin.social 10 points 10 months ago

I saw this kind of behavior in many places.

We had a LIDL discount store on the other side of the road in my old location. One day they offered a top-of-the-pop GFX card (25 years ago!) for an incredibly low price. Before opening times, there was a queue from the door across the parking lot to the street. I was there when the shop opened (not in the queue, just on the way to my car), and people stormed in. I saw people jumping over the checkouts to bypass the crowd. Later that day, I talked with a cashier. They had had serious problems that morning, because their allotment had been a total of three cards.

Many years later, a superstore offered a high-priced LEGO set for a dead cheap price. So I was there when the doors opened, ran towards the toy aisle, grabbed one of the two sets on display. I thought for a moment to buy the other one, too, but some other guy just took it. At the checkout I asked if they maybe had another one in stock, but they admitted they only had gotten those two sets.

[–] ares35@kbin.social 6 points 10 months ago

the kmart in the town i lived in back in the early 1990s did this all the time...

and since they knew ahead-of-time of upcoming percent or dollar-off promotions, they would jack the shelf price up on those items the week or two before so they could go 'on sale' (and sometimes even at a higher price than the usual regular selling price).

ya. that store was bulldozed a few years later.

[–] xc2215x@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Very unfortunate to see.

[–] ClopClopMcFuckwad@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Rain cheque that shit, son!

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Did. Sale was limit: 2. At least normally I can pile 8 or so into my cart and process them in batches of two, not so much with rain cheques.

[–] rbesfe@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

My friend, you need to drink less soda

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

A good stock-up lasts us months.

[–] rbesfe@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh ok good, I thought this was like a 3-4 week supply you were talking about. I don't have that much pantry space lol

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

We had snagged two of those bottle holders from the Wholesale Club a few years ago, so we’re talking about maybe 16 bottles for a half-year’s supply.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago

Complains about soda stocks > Drinking water comes out of the tap for free

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Did you try asking at customer service desk? Back when I worked at one of those stores and dinosaurs roamed the earth, I would have put that through for anyone that came up to the cs desk and asked, as long as they didn't do a mountain that draws attention. Around the time I left though they took away the ability to enter quantity multipliers without an override, and while technically cs reps have override auth they generally aren't allowed to use it on themselves without permission (which would be granted if no other super or cs rep was available in a timely manner). Before that change it was possible (as a cs rep at a cs terminal) to do any number without override as long as the current price wasn't also a limit price which would make it require two for some reason. They also got really annoying about the override logs around the same time.

Edit: I mean asking to have more than the limit at that price on the basis that you would have bought them multiple days, rather than a raincheck.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca -2 points 10 months ago

Yes?