Real Canadian Superstore review: witless management 9

I have been a reluctant shopper of Superstore for some years now. I remember that a couple of years ago I was shopping there and was approached by someone doing a in store survey. At the ed of the survey I was asked what bothered me most about Superstore and I told them that I thought that there pricing strategies were both misleading and dishonest. She seemed to know right away wwhat I was talking about - you know - where they have the price of something in big print - then in tiny little print above it it will say - when you buy 3 or more - then they will give you the real price in the same tiny print when you only buy one. To me this is dishonest and untrustworthy to say the least.

So - what happens after that...They came out with all new sinage etc that says in big bold print - PRICES YOU CAN TRUST - ALWAYS!

They still use the dirty, dishonest misleading pricing policies but know they also slap you in the face about it with their disgusting new signage. For me - they last while all I can say is Thank God for Walmart - where they really have PRICES you can trust.

Superstore may think they are fooling people - but I think they are destroying themselves.

The "Real Canadian Superstore" ... There is nothing really 'Canadian' about the superstore aside from their Canadian employees and the country... rarely do you see local produce, they import almost everything exclusively from China ...

"Prices you can trust "... like the person who posted before me stated they alter their signage ... you need a magnifying glass to read the small font they have above that low pricing ... which usually states "when you buy 4 items or more in .8 font"...

"Worth switching super markets for"... another falsehood ... they aren't worth switching super markets for

My complaint:

I went shopping at the Langley Real Canadian Superstore today. I went to check out at a cashier. The first cashier I went to was just turning out her light and said she was closing. The second cashier closed as I approached along with the third. The rest of the line ups were snaking up the aisles because of the inefficient design team and the fact that the Real Canadian Superstore has the bare minimum of cashiers on at any given time.

When I questioned an assistant manager on this, she stated that they met the compliance or minimum requirement in the Employment Standards Act with the number of cashiers they had working".

Anyway, I finally joined one of the long-winding line ups and waited ten minutes before I was actually at the cashier. By the Real Canadian Superstore's staffing standards I imagine this was fairly good time.

Other supermarkets like Safeway, IGA, Walmart, Pricemart actively watch the customer flow at cash registers to ensure that their customers are not waiting in long line ups. Superstore has no regard or respect for the loyal customer following that they have.

They insult their customers by making them bag their own groceries after a typical ten to fifteen minute wait in line, whilst they scan single purchases multiple times. You have to catch it at the time it happens or they won't refund your money.

Following my extensive wait I went to "customer service" and asked to speak with the store manager. He happened to be walking by and I said excuse me ... don't you realize that you don't have enough cashiers on? Superstore makes more than enough in annual profits to have every cash register running all day regardless of customer flow. I also shared with him that when the Langley, BC Walmart completes their grocery section that Superstore will lose a large percentage of their customers with good cause.

The store manager just continued on walking and ignored me. I said don't walk away from me while I am speaking with you. Your company blatantly ignores the needs of it's customers by running everything lean. It isn't acceptable to have a five minute wait in a line up. You have the staff so get more cashiers at the registers. The only inaudible remark he made was an insincere sorry. I find this typical of superstore...
My other complaints include the following:

- staff members deliberately don't make eye contact with you in fear of being asked a question,
-they redate meat and fish products regardless of the human danger it imposes
-overall customer service staff and management are inept, impolite and disrespectful
-you have to bag your own groceries
-single items are often scanned multiple times while the customer is busy bagging their groceries
-you have to purchase your bags

Additionally, they have the poor cashiers asking you before they finish totalling your bill ...

"Do you want to buy the deal of the week"? ... which is usually some over priced item and certainly far from being any kind of deal. It's annoying for the cashier to ask it and annoying to hear it. What bafoon is running their marketing or advertising department?

Next, how about their nauseating commercials some half-wit in Toronto has produced? Gaylen the mid-30's suck hole prances around telling us how wonderful all their blue menu products are and how wonderful it is to purchase Canadian products ... I guess Superstore pays their little Gaylen enough to feel good about lying to his fellow Canadians without regret or regard - it's hard to believe people continue to shop there. I'll gladly go to Walmart when their grocery section is completed here in Langley.

Being a cashier at a Superstore, it is a bit sad to hear these complaints. I'm sorry that people experience poor customer service and their Superstore however there are some things which I do feel people need to understand..

The price issue. Yes, I do agree it could be a bit better yet it is the customer's responsibility to look at the sign. It is a way of advertising the sale price. Superstore is not the only grocery store - or store for that matter, who have the same format. Take a look at other flyers and you will see that there are small prints here and there. If you were to go to Save-On, in big print, it shows their sale price and yet the price for non-members are shown in small print in a corner as well. Same for their "when you buy 3 or more" items. Also, how big are the signs going to be when you have it all the same big font anyways? "3.50 when you buy 3 or more" and then the "3.99" when you don't, is a lot to fit on a small shelf tag. I doubt Superstore is trying to deceive customers because they know that once you look at the receipt and notice the price is different than what you thought, you can always refund it.

As for the line-ups. I agree that we do need more cashiers on tills, as for I am a cashier and it causes me stress to have snaking, curving line ups as well. Unfortunately, as much as my supervisor and manager would love to put more cashiers on with such big line ups, they can't. It has nothing to do with them. What happens is that our head office only gives so many hours per department. For example.. Head office tells my manager he can only give 130 hours to the meat department, 170 hours to cashiers, etc. With these hours, he has to divide them among the employees and is not allowed to go over these hours. So often enough, when the store is busy and we have curving line ups, we are rarely able to call more cashiers because we do not have the hours to do so. The only way we are able to get more hours is if customers actually go on the Superstore website and make a formal complaint there because then that complaint is sure to reach the head office. They will surely take it more seriously from a customer than if they were to hear it from the employees.

Redating meat and fish.. This is absolutely not the Superstore policy. Employees are not trained to do so. If the stuck-up Manager will not listen to you, this is another complaint that should be sent on the Superstore website. Repackaging is something that will not be tolerated.

Paying for bags and bagging your own groceries.. again, as a cashier, I've heard these complaints many times. Unfortunately, it is a way to drive down the prices. If customers want low prices, the cost has to be cut from somewhere. At other grocery stores such as Save-On or Safeway, they are a bit more expensive because the cost for bags are put into the product prices, along with the Courtesy Clerk's (the person who bags the groceries) wages. At Superstore, if you DO need help bagging, cashiers are able to call someone up to help you. I certainly help customers bag if they are elderly or need help for whatever reason. We do not make customers bag their own groceries as an insult. Also, paying for bags is a way to get people to bring their own bags so people can be more environmentally friendly! If hate paying for bags and bagging your own groceries, I do not see why you'd be shopping at Superstore.

Furthermore, I'm sorry you've had such bad customer service in the past however I'd wish you'd realize that not Superstore and its employees are out to get you. There are employees who do try their best at customer service. I certainly do wish you the best at your Walmart, (which by the way, I feel is odd since the issue of non-canadian products being sold at Superstore was brought up.. and you're going to be shopping at Walmart which is further from canadian.. )

I went to Superstore to purchase a carton af cigarettes today, boy did I flip out when asked by the cashier for photo ID. I am fourty two years old. Spruce Grove Superstore will not sell you any tobacco products to anyone that looks under the age of forty.I think this is getting to the point of being ridiculus. I have decided because of the embarrassment they have caused me in line uyp, I will not shop there for my groceries or cigarettes anymore. This is about 2.5 times the legal age to buy cigarettes and if someone cant distinguish that much of a difference in age, then they don't deserve my business. It is getting to the point that large corporations aren't allowing us anymore privacy. Superstore can now kiss my [censor].

Mlangley;

I agree with you on some points, but very few. I agree with the purchasing bags and bagging your own groceries, and me being a cashier at Superstore, I do not charge for bags because I feel you shouldn't have to pay to pack your own groceries. And the "Deal of the Week" Crap; we hate that just as much as you do, but heres the thing: We get fired if we dont ask. We make no commission off it and it wasn't in the job description AND was just sprung on us at randomly without notice. So yes. We hate it too.

I went in to buy some soft drinks. Almost everything was on a 'buy groups of 4 for $2.98 each' offer. So I bought groups of 4. I decided to use self checkout because it's the only way to monitor the discounts offered. I scanned 4 items and everything came up at full price, not the advertised price. A manager was summoned and told me that this meant 4 of the exact same item. So in other words I'd need 4 Coke Zeros. Even thought the whole aisle had the same signage; i.e everything was on the exact same offer.

The word "Groups" is vague. But when stores have such offers they ALWAYS mean ANY 4 on the same offer. Why would anyone want to buy 4 crates of the exact same drink? That's just stupid. Their text should have read "Buy 4 Coke Zero at $2.98 each" and there should have been a disclaimer explaining that you cannot mix non-identical items, as a bare minimum. A "Group" does not imply everything is identical. It sounds like what I took it to mean. The manager said to the self-checkout assistant, suggesting that stupid customers had been making that mistake all day, no doubt implying here's another one. Well this is false advertising, and in my opinion a money making scam. I would bet 95% people would have read that signage as I read it. Sure if you work there there's some internal language which you may think is clear to you. But stores like that rely on tricking people into paying more than has been agreed, knowing that most will never know. For every person like me there's probably 10 who unknowingly paid over the odds. Thankfully as I was at self checkout, I was able to walk away and tell her she can waste her time putting everything back.

Canadian superstore are the absolute worst scam artists. Their pricing structure is deceptive. If you work there you simply won't see it because you're there every day and it will look perfectly clear to you. But when they have decent offers on they put ludicrous limits on like limit or 1 or 2 items. This defeats the object of discounting the item. If I'm going to save 50c off something costing $5, I'm not going to waste my time by just buying one. I'll probably buy 10 and that is surely the win for superstore. But limiting items to 1 or 2 (1 is extremely common) means that they get away with advertising lower prices, but if you can only buy one, then that's deceptive.

So the next time you're in store they have a 'Buy 3 for $3.50 each'. But you have to look really hard to notice whether an offer price is based on buying a fixed quantity, like groups of 3 to qualify for a price, or whether 3 is a limit. They switch between these two two very different concepts. Of course many people simply don't notice. I'm sharp as a knife and I've missed that on occasion. The money I've overpaid is simply more profit for them. But when you rip your customers off they remember, they tell people, and eventually they don't go back. And that's exactly what I'm doing.

Precisely correct what the above just said and explained. I've been duped several times by Super-store's devious offers and pricing that way... and no matter how one tries to watch at the till, it's almost impossible. There's no doubt in my mind it's done deliberately to syphon money out of peoples pockets by their devious and corrupt way.
To one other's comment about "Gaylen(s?) the mid-30's suck hole" --- well, he owns the stores... gifted to him by his daddy. So, of course he can prance around like some peacock... knowing how they dupe us 'the customers' as their suckers.
If you write a complaint directly to their head office and address it to Gaylen's-(s?) attention he never replies, but his low-life lawyer does... and threatens you with legal action if you complain further.
Not all that long ago I had a large can of "President's Choice" Ketchup that went bad and it ate a hole through the top-lid. At first I was going to put it in the garbage, but then I thought that they may actually be interested to know of their rotting product(s) for quality control, so I took it back to the store. At that time I honestly thought that they cared!
Well, as the female in Customer Service looked at the can, and rang it up on the computer, she then said there's nothing wrong with it. So I picked up the can and shook it a little to show her where it was oozing black liquid out of the top, and asked "what would you call that?". She instantly turned and walked away, but would not answer me or acknowledge that in fact the Ketchup did go bad. She wouldn't say a word but just kept walking back and forth past me behind her counter.
When I pursued that she answer me, she clearly said "you were ignorant to do that!"
(And THIS is the type of Customer Service they provide in their Super Store in Prince George, BC.) I then asked, how else could I show her that it was rotten - so she can realize it for herself?
She must have rang, or signalled, for her supervisor - who appeared on scene - so I
complained to her of the behaviour of that Customer Service person. That Supervisor was of no help and called for the store manager, which I wanted to see and talk to of
the so-called ladie's behaviour, but when he showed up he went absolutely stark insane about not hearing a word I tried to convey to him, but instead he accused me of mistreating his employees. I tried to reason with him as to what took place thus far but he would not hear a word I tried to say. When I then shook the can again to show him the point I was trying to make, he instantly grabbed at me, assaulted me, causing bodily harm. His female supervisor called for their goon back-up squad who came running to assist the manager. (What an insane turn-around to the good deed I thought I was doing!)
The goons then started screaming at me to get out of the store. So, instead of me being able to maintain my composure and call out for some customer with a cell phone to quickly call the police, I was too upset by then and went out of that insane asylum, with 3 or 4 of those goons following me to my car -- where their heroic manager snapped several pictures of the car as I drove away.
That's when I wrote the head office and got that response from their lawyer -- as mentioned at the beginning of this sick affair!

When I wrote about the attacked assault I received at the hands of the Manager at the All Canadian Superstore in Prince George, BC, for bringing back a can of their rotten
'President's Choice' Ketchup, I missed some additional skulduggery (or robbery) by them at the same time. While their attack on me was going on, the Customer Service person put the refund money on the counter, but as I was about to leave and asked for it, the Manager and his cohorts instantly ordered her not to give it to me, nor did they give me back that rotten can of ketchup. This action by them then constitutes an outright robbery too, besides the assault, causing bodily harm, which the Manager inflicted on me.
Well, I'm only 80 years old, so should a pack of them be allowed to get away with such terrible behaviour, including Loblaw's Lawyer who threatened me with legal action if I complained about this any further to them? Harassment - he called it - Instead of offering me any form of human settlement for their corrupt and insane treatment of me.

As a cashier, we hate Superstore as much as you do. Store-level employees get treated like ### and get blamed for all the crap that head office imposes on us. Trust me, if we want to change a lot of the same things you do. It would be nice to be adequately staffed but head office won't give us the hours we need. It would be nice not to have to ask about the deal of the week (the products are generally stupid and we feel stupid having to ask) but head office requires it. We can be fired if we fail to ask too many customers. We hate a lot of our refund policies too. There are a lot of things we have to get permission from the managers to do. Some managers are actually awesome and trust us to make things right. Other managers are what we call head office kiss assers. It is all about pleasing head office which means the employees are miserable as are the customers. Unfortunately, I have to pay for my education and jobs are few and far between in my city. Trust me, if I didn't depend on this greedy corporation for my education, I'd have quit long ago.