By Lanny
I got my flyer from Real Canadian Superstore on Thursday January 27 for a sale starting Friday January 28. The 2 items that I wanted to purchase on sale were bulk cheese for 8.49 and frozen pizza for 4.97. Either my wife or I have been in there all 3 days since the sale started and have yet to see the cheese (empty shelves with little signs saying restock me) and the pizza choices are limited to 2 or 3 kinds as opposed to the 15 different varieties shown. When asked what is going on with these items, we have been given more excuses than a 6th grader who did not do his homework. Everything from sold out(that was day 1,2,and 3 of the sale)the stock is in the back and will be restocking shelves in the evening(this is at 10:30am Saturday) and the ever present standby excuse the trucks are late. I am a long haul trucker for a major company here in Canada. To satisfy my curiosity I called my dispatcher to ask how the highways are both east and west of Manitoba. All trucks with our company are on time and there are no delays. We are talking about upwards of 500 trucks. This leads me to believe that Superstore will not be putting have these items on the shelf while the price remains this low. They refuse to give out rain checks and will not substitute another item even though there are comparable sized (but higher priced) cheeses and pizzas now occupying the spot where these deep discounted items should be. This is not the first time I have encountered this problem with R.C.S.S. and I would go so far as to say it is being done on purpose. Get the people in the store with unbelievable low prices on one or two items, never have them in stock for the period of the sale and know that once we are in the store and have a cart half full of items we are going to follow through with our purchases. I know this letter is going to have zero effect because by the time anyone acts on it the sale will have come and gone with superstore pulling the same stunt just with different items and again the simple excuse of the trucks being late cannot be proved wrong. However any other grocery store that I shop at will have the decency to put their flyer on the front door with said items circled and explain that they are not available. Rain checks available at customer service. Superstore will not do this, they wait for you to find out for yourself, usually when you are half way through your shopping trip and too late to go any where else, so you purchase the higher priced item, grumble about it and then forget about it.
dawn says...
I have the same problems with Extra Foods they give the same reasons best thing go to lob laws web sit write customer service you do get a response but it takes a few days let then know all that goes on at this store also call the 1-800 number and give them a full rundown tell them you want a rt call from the area manager . The only way we are going to get the stores to do there jobs is for us the customers to do are job and that write or call .
Joe says...
I don’t know of any retail stores that receive stock on weekends, and it is possible that the delay in receiving the items was at Loblaws’ distribution centre. If the supplier for the cheese and pizza did not ship their stock to arrive at Loblaws’ warehouse in time for the flyer, then there is very little the stores can do.
I think, in the interest of being fair, you should go back and check during the week.
Ron Simmons says...
That is how Extra Foods does business. I used to shop at the Extra Foods chain, but now I shop at Safeway.
Safeway is always in stock and now I have started to collect Air Miles which are a huge bargain!
Joe Blow says...
WHHhhhaaaaaaaa…..
Dude get a life. You are so upset about a sale you actually went to the trouble to talk to your work dispatcher about highway conditions. OCD much? You used work time for personal shopping? Bravo. Not happy with them? Shop somewhere else. Simple
dawn says...
FYI TO JOE Extra Foods and Super Store do get stock every day this I know fist hand .I have shopped at Extra Foods for 40 yrs no choice small town but in the last yr I am so feed up with them I have gone to our local COOP they now get 90% of my shopping due to the way they run the store out at Extra Foods and in all this time the staff have changed but the store does not . I go in get what I need or in most cases what I can and get out less stress .
glowworm2k says...
I have had good luck at RCSS and other stores in getting rain cheques. What I do is check with an employee in whatever dept. the sold-out items are found, and then politely ask them if they will come to the customer service counter with me so that I can get a rain cheque. With the employee for the section verifying the goods aren’t available, CS has always given me the raincheque (so far, anyways). It could be a raincheque policy issue with your local store, but this method is worth a try.
PS - Works best when the store isn’t too busy - I try to go on weekends before 08h30 or weekdays before 11h00
AHHC says...
If you live in the bigger town, usually I take the flyer and go price match in Zellers, Walmart, or London Drugs…. It save my times
dawn says...
glowworm2k when was the last time you got a rain cheques. Extra Foods and Super Store in Sask no longer give out rain cheques .
Joe says...
@dawn: thanks.I didn’t know that Extra Foods and Super Store receive stock on Saturdays and Sundays.
Maybe it’s just an Ontario thing, because I know for sure that Loblaws and its other companies do not get inventory on weekends - in Ontario.
I still think the OP should go back and check if the items are in stock now.
dawn says...
If they are like my store they will stock after the sale and get this each time save .ca has a good coupon and the item is on sale they will not stock it but go in the day after the sale is over and the shelf is full . some times one just can not keep running back each day .
Linda says...
I was just at the RCSS store in Simcoe and most of the BOGO deals I was hunting for were all gone, no empty skid no spots for them. Somehow my DH got rainchecks for all the items. The customer service clerk even added quantity of 6 for each item. I was so happy, so now I can return within the month and still cash in on the deal. Sometimes you just have to ask, maybe demand but it works.
Pablo says...
I also have alot of issues with Superstore and have encountered the same out of stock problems as Lanny. What really gets to me is that when you get to the checkout, the cashier has the nerve to say to the customer, “Would you like to buy the featured deal of the week item?” I say if it truly was a ‘deal’ they wouldn’t have to push it and the shelf would be empty just like for all the items I really wanted. Also, when you do go early, they are still sweeping the floors and there are unemptied pallets crowding the aisles(usually not with the advertised sale items though). I ask why they don’t stock shelves during closing hours and they always say the truck just came in. I say if they had planned and ordered inventory properly, those items could sit in the back storeroom to be put on the shelf the next night and there would be sufficient stock for most of these items for that single day. Also their new Admatch policy is full of disclaimers, they can decide what the limits are, who their competitors are and whether the item is equivalent or not(do I really care about the brand name of eggs or milk between different stores?). And their product price shelf tags are often missing and they have no UPC price check machines in the store(like Zellers or Walmart) so you have to take it to a cashier to scan(but who wants to wait in a lineup to find a price). And if the price is scanned wrong and a customer catches it, they actually have the nerve to remove or tear the price portion of the shelf tag so all remaining shoppers have no idea instead of putting up a new tag immediately. They can spend countless thousands for TV and print advertising Admatch but they don’t have the staff to keep up with the price changes. And one more beef… why can’t they get around to replacing those square wheels on a high percentage of their shopping carts?
zippedy doo dah says...
Always do a walk through first and collect the sale items before you get anything else. It’s good exercise if you do it quickly.
Then go back and get anything else you need that is not on sale.
You should always lodge a complaint with Better Business Bureau when businesses do not carry sufficient product for a sale. This is known as “false advertising”. Is there a law against false advertising ? Let’s investigate.
Anyway, vote with your feet. Ask competitors to honor your coupon (if it’s reasonable) and don’t shop at the RCSS.
Nadine says...
I leave on Vancouver Island and have the same problem with the local S.S. My husband went to customer service and was told by the cashier that they don’t hand out rain checks (It was for the cheese, which was advertised all week, but of course the cooler has also been empty all week). She kept repeating that she’s been there for 18 years and has never handed out a rain check. She was even yelling it as he was walking away. He finally had to tell her to shut up because she was being rude….
Thankfully there is a Safeway (although, some products are overpriced) a Quality Foods, Thriftys - and in about 2 months there will also be a Costco. Hopefully the Superstore will smarten up.
Nadine says...
**live** - sorry
Lee says...
I have the same problem with the Courtenay Superstore that Nadine described. I went in (twice) to get one of the large bags of rice advertised in the last flyer. Surprise! Surprise! There wern’t any………. either time. The “service” desk people refused to give a raincheck or substitute an equivalent product for the same price. The “limit” on this product was 8 !!! bags per customer. That works out to a little over 300 pounds of rice for each customer………. ??? Several other customers were complaining about customers who are buying for their restaurant businesses or some type of commercial operation. One lady said she saw a man with 8 bags in one cart and his wife had 8 bags in another. They own a local Asian food establishment. Someone should tell them that Superstore is a food RETAILER, and that as business operators, they should be purchasing from a food WHOLESALER. The rest of us don’t have that privilege. Superstore could set lower “limits” on purchase quantities to discourage these greedy creeps, but they really don’t seem to care. Rice is just one example. I have seen the same greedy behaviour by commercial or institutional buyers when there are special prices on meat & dairy products, pop, etc. Maybe some of these institutional purchasers need Revenue Canada to take a closer look at their expense/profit statements…….. Oh wait, these items aren’t really going to be accounted for as an “expense” because they come from a food ‘retailer’ rather than through a food wholesale account. So, if there was no “expense” does it therefore follow that there could be no profit? Even the Revenue Canada boys ain’t that slow. THANK GOD that COSTCO is opening soon in the Comox Valley. I am one customer that SUPERSTORE has lost forever.
John says...
Flyers are just a stores way to get you in there….they fake advertise stuff all the time, and while it’s illegal, no one bothers doing anything about it. They know customers will eventually give up if they don’t get the product at the sale price abut in the meantime they got you in the store and you likely bought a bunch of other stuff while there - success in their eyes.