CVS Beverage Prices: Only Off By $997 Or So
A few weeks apart, in different stores, readers Spencer and Sean spotted the same error on CVS shelf tags. Printing error? Zoned-out employees? Maybe our assumptions are all wrong, and it's an innovative new pricing strategy.
The same error showed up on bottles of bottled Starbucks Frappucinos and Diet Orange Crush.
GALLERY
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Comments:
I've always wanted to try some 'STRBK FR DK CH MCH'...though I'm worried about being disemboweled.
well $1600 for some diet orange soda was stretching it, glad they lowered the price to a mere grand.
CVS Employee Here!
999.99 is the price printed on labels and signs when the POS system does not allow us to sell an item yet. We are allowed to receive it in from the vendor however we have to hold it in the cooler (in this case) until we are allowed to sell it. If you attempt to scan it at the register it will beep at you once louder than normal and will say UNAUTHORIZED DSD ITEM however it will allow you to enter a price and sell it as a "taxable item" or "non-taxable item"
@Chris Holland: Maybe its because I work at CVS but I learned how they abbreviate it.
STRBK: Starbucks
FR: Frappuccino
DK: Dark
CH: Chocolate
MCH: Mocha
I saw one of these in a new CVS and brought it to the manager's attention. He was quite perplexed.
@wyssaj01: Thanks for the info. But I think it's odd that something that isn't yet for sale would be allowed in the salesfloor coolers. Maybe that's a practicality complication because it is a vendor-handled product--they are required to stock their products but can't necessarily do it the day it goes on sell? And when it does you can just change the price tag?
It has to do with the item being loaded into the system correctly. The basic information is sent, however if a mistake is made when its added, it automatically defaults to 999.99 dollars. On the plus side, it won't even ring up so if you missed the fact that the label was put there(the vendors do the coolers, or should I say ARE SUPPOSED to do, I always end up redoing), you can call and get the correct info loaded. BTW, eww on the old school orange labels.
@Chris Holland: I'm not quite sure what you'd have to say I this web site to get them to disembowel you.
And I don't think I want to know either.
I think 999.99 is better than my company's 0.01 pricing when there is stuff my store has stuff we are not authorized, people still want us to sell it for a penny. When its 999.99 people know you are not supposed to sell it to the public.
Ummm...last pic. That "Diet Orange Crush" is in front of bottles of Sierra Mist. Wrong Price, Wrong Place. CVS FTW!
Perhaps it's the pallet price?
The abbreviations are the thing that gets my goat. How damn hard is it to use two lines or whatever you have to do when formatting the tags so that they are readable? When I first saw the pictures I truly could not possibly figure out what the hell it was, and I sat there staring it at for at least 2 minutes. What colossal idiocy.
Is this really Consumerist worthy? I mean, obviously its an error, no reasonable person is gonna shell out a grand for a drink.
Whenever I see stories about things like this, I wonder if this site is dedicated to helping out consumers fight the man, or if its just about stupid stuff like this that just takes up space.
No, no, no! They are taking the CompUSA, Circuit City, and Joe's Sporting clearance route!
Original Price: $999.99
Sale Price: 99% off!
@Coles_Law: Probably a new bottle size which has a new bar code.
@eigenvector: Seems odd, you'd think they'd price it at the same time the item is entered into the system instead of after the fact.
I would like a quart of Diet Orange Crush, please.
@Radi0logy: UNBELIEVEABLY hard. You have no idea how long something small like that takes to get put through the proper chains.
I like the unit price, only $1599.98 per quart!
Yep just an error, a can of stop leak was 75,000.00 just a mistake. Life goes on.
A grand for some Starbucks? Sounds about right.
No wonder Starbucks sales are down, all the people who lost their jobs can't afford to pay a grand for their daily cup of coffee anymore.
Last week I was in Wegmans and saw truffles in a locked box selling for $399 a pound. I shook my head and wondered how sales of that would be...I doubt restaraunts would go to a grocery store to pick up high end luxury foodstuffs.
@RandomHookup: Given that he's referencing a crappy Starbucks drink, disemboweled might be the very word he intended, no?
@eigenvector: I don't know about this commenter's CVS, but in the two CVS stores I used to work at, the only refrigerators / freezers / coolers we had on the property were the sales floor ones -- there weren't any in the back room. So all perishables went into them. (And we didn't stock them, they were stocked by external vendors. The Coke guy came in the mornings and the Pepsi guy came in the afternoons.)
If you don't like the particular article, I believe all you have to do is keep scrolling and find an article that you are interested in.
I could be wrong though.
Eh, it's not off by that much by Starbucks' standards.