The Truth About The Coupons and Yo-Yo Pricing Policies
1) Read the fine print on the coupons. Close to 70% of the store merchandise is ineligible for the discounts. Rule of thumb: if its a brand name or designer label, its excluded. If its an electronic item, its excluded.in most cases, the coupons limit you to the generic store labels. Literally hundreds of customers get this rude awakening at the cash register every time Foleys has a coupon event. For the employees, coupon events are weekends of dread and loathing because they know they will spend their days subject to the wrath of irate customers and having to get store managers involved. Apparently, Foleys believes all this ill will is worth it?
2) Youre not really getting a discount! The coupons operate on the same principal as your preferred shopping cards at the grocery store. The so-called sale price is the everyday markdown price thats always offered year round. Foleys just marks up the price 10,15, or 20%. Therefore, when your coupon gets scanned, the percentage markdown makes you think the final price you pay is some sort of bargain when its the same, discounted price you would pay if you bought the same item at Target, Kohls, or JCPenney minus the gimmicks. However, if you dont use the coupon, you pay an artificially inflated price.
3) Its only one markdown per item, per coupon most of the time (sometimes coupons are for the entire purchase). If you want to buy six items and have only four coupons, you pay the artificially inflated price on two items that are technically discounted already.in fact, Foleys has a specific directive that goes out to all associates. I cant remember the exact name, but I believe its called Scan It, Rip It, Pitch It. This company directive actively prohibits and discourages Foleys associates from scanning a coupon more than once in order to prevent unnecessary discounts. The company literature extols the benefits of wringing more money out of customers and how it translates to higher profits. The customer is thereby forced into a corner and either has to find extra coupons or become nasty and escalate to a manager. Most people standing at the register with a line of customers behind them arent going to go that extra step and will just pay the extra money to avoid the hassle. Foleys knows this and this is their sneaky little way of procuring extra revenue by picking the pockets of unsuspecting customers. What they fail to get through their thick heads, is that a short-term gain can turn into a long-term loss. Irritate a customer to get an extra $10.00 today, and lose $1000.00 in future sales when that disgruntled customer decides to shop somewhere else.
4) Why are brand names excluded from the coupon discount? All retailers, not just Foleys, negotiate price points in advance with companies like Levis, KitchenAid, Calphalon, Osh Kosh, and Tommy Hilfiger binding the retailers not to go below a set price. If one retailer overly discounts, it dilutes the value of the brand, causes money losing price wars, and can result with the manufacturer banning that retailer from selling a popular or prestigious brand. On the flip side, a manufacturer is not going to give a preferential price to one retailer over another. For example, Polo isnt going to give Foleys a better price than Dillards and risk losing Dillards as a customer. Thats why the same KitchenAid mixer, for example, you see advertised at Dillards, Foleys, Pennys, Target and Kohls is always $249.99 and you will never find it for less than that price.
5) The coupons and sale prices are just deceptive gimmicks to get customers in the store and track their spending habits for marketing purposes. Shop around and do price comparisons and youll see the prices you get from Foleys will be the same at practically every other retailer for identical merchandise no matter what season.
6) When you see an ad that reads 20,30, or 50% off, its not really on sale for that kind of a markdown. What the ad is really communicating is that the sale price is 20,30, or 50% off the MSRP (manufacturers suggested retail price) which no retailer ever charges! Refer back to point number 2. Its the same kind of gimmick to make you think youre getting a bargain.
So-Called Sales
1) Foleys, like most other traditional department stores, is having a really tough time in this economy. 2002s earnings for May Department Stores (Foleys parent company) were down 62% from the year before (Dallas Morning News) and their latest quarterly results released in May of are down over 5% from the same period last year. Needless to say, theyre desperate for business and need to do anything they can to get you in the door! Thus, Foleys runs a sale every week. Just a few years back, a Foleys sale with coupons or a Red Apple was done only a few times a year. Now, theyre coming up with any excuse in the book to hold a sale-Anniversary Sale, Beginning of Summer Sale, Middle of Summer Sale, Groundhog Day Sale, Foleys Presidents Mother In Laws Birthday Sale, etc. Etc. There will be a Foleys flier in your mailbox every week.
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) Theres really no such thing as a sale these days. The only real sales that exist anymore are closeouts, end of the season inventory reductions, and discontinued items. Heres a little research project to prove it. Save all those fliers you get in the mail every week. After you have amassed a small junk mail collection, go through them to find identical items and compare the prices from one sale to another. Granted, there will be a few exceptions with some minor price differences, but the majority of the sales prices will be exactly the same! Catalogs printed one, two, six and twelve months apart advertise the same merchandise for the same prices! One has to ask, what really constitutes a sale? It turns into a if a tree falls in the forest debate. Where is the line between something that is permanently marked down and something thats offered at a special price? It may be the everyday low price, but is it sale price?
Buying Furniture? Good Luck!
90% of any problems you have with the furniture you purchased at Foleys, can be traced to one or all three of these points:
1) Normal store policies and procedures regarding refunds, exchanges, and satisfaction do not apply in the furniture department. The furniture department of every store is run out of the corporate offices in Houston-NOT at the local level. Furthermore, it operates like something from the stone ages! Foleys furniture office has never heard of the modern management techniques we all take for granted today such as multi-tasking, cross-job training, instantaneous electronic communications like email or cell phones, and just in time inventory management.individual store associates have to make phone calls to Houston if they have a problem or need help with an issue. 5% of the time, an actual person will be there to answer the call. 45% of the time only voice mail is available and a furniture manager will return the call (but not promptlyon average, within five days), and the other 50% of the time, no one returns the call.
Problems such as merchandise quality and botched deliveries are regarded as so routine, that these managers consider these to be nuisances that are beneath their involvement. The cross-job training is a huge problem! At Foleys furniture, one person does AP, one person does AR, one person handles cash log entries, one person handles MIS, one person handles delivery issues, one person handles refunds, etc. For example, if a customer is waiting on a refund, and the person responsible is on vacation or out sick, the whole system grinds to a halt and the customer is SOL. Everything will have to wait until that person is back at work. The other people in the office are either unwilling or unable to perform the task until someone screams loud enough!
2) There is no centralized or standardized training for store associates working in the furniture department. Each furniture associate is given a binder with the furniture product information and a computer operations manual. Any specialized training related to procedures or policy solely depends on the furniture departments team leader. If that person is professional and on the ball, youll have a decent sales associate. But, if that person is a flake, youve got someone who is poorly trained and has learned what he or she knows purely by trial and error. I had a flake as my department leader. I had to rely on senior associates telling me how to do something only as the specific situation arose. My second day on the job, I was left completely alone to run the department for six hours without any supervisory assistance and had to wing it with the customers.
3) Regular department managers, AKA Area Sales Managers (ASM) are 100% ignorant when it comes to
the furniture department. At best, the Division Sales Manager (DSM) who is above several departments knows some general information when it comes to service issues and the same goes for the store manager. However, if both of those persons are off or unavailable the day you need help, a general manager on duty is going to have no clue on how to assist. Also, the DSM or store managers have only a general knowledge of the furniture department, not specific. The DSM at my store had 16 years experience with Foleys but still couldnt perform basic functions as looking up merchandise on the computer or ringing a sale.
Finally, Foleys views their associates with contempt and suspicion. Training and support is only provided at the minimal levels that are legally required. This is not entirely unwarranted. The turnover rate in retail in general is outrageous. The average associate will usually last somewhere around 90 days and move on.
Furthermore, employee theft is a huge, billion-dollar problem. So, there is some justification in Foleys managements unwillingness to invest a great deal in the well being of their associates. Still, there are retail operations out there that do invest in their people resulting in lower turnover and happier, more productive employees. Two examples would be Starbucks and Nordstrom. Your return is only as good as what you invest!
One interesting point, Foleys parent, May Department Stores, is experimenting with stores that are copies of the Kohls model! Maybe theyve finally decided to pay attention to the writing on the wall!
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