Target has lost a $100+ per week customer

As a retail manager I can understand why the Target manager was
frustrated. People are constantly nagging about the price of sale
items, clearance items, and regularly priced merchandise - even for
just a few pennies difference. It gets annoying. Target has those
price scanner machines on certain aisles so it is easy to double check
a price...often times the tagged price is actually higher than the
ring price. Most customers don't take the time to do this or don't ask
nicely "Hey, could you check this price for me because...." they just
stomp up to the counter like an ape demanding money off the tagged
price. Customers are rude and disrespectful of retail workers from the
cashier on up to the management. In this case, sure, the manager may
have explained the situation with a little more tact but who knows
what kind of bitch this customer was being?

Often in retail, what ever is not selling will be marked down to make
the product move. Funny enough, color does matter when marking down
items. As a former retail manager, color does mean a lot when marking
down a product. I have seen the same exact shirt be marked down in
only blue but the pink stay regular price. Why? The pink is actually
selling and the blue is not, so companies need to make the blue shirt
move they will mark it down.

Unfortunately, it is a retail practice that you are a victim of.
However, the people were rude and should have explained that to you in
depth. I understand your frustration and a good store assosciate would
have as well, but they couldn't make it the same price because you
wanted it...they would have to do that to every customer and therefore
would loose money.

Yes, the gender thing is completely inflicted by the parents and
society. The baby could care less either way if the toy is blue or
pink. It's the parents small-minds that make blue = boy and pink =
girl. At six months, I am not even sure if the baby can quite
determine colors yet anyway. I know for quite sometime, that all they
can see is basically black and white and shades of grey...not all
colors.

Why does everyone demand compensation? Can't one of these letters just
complain about customer service and NOT want some kind of payment?
What has this world come to?

I fail to see why your six month old baby is going to give a hoot one
way or another if his toy is pink or blue. Is it really that
important?

YIU CERTAINLY WERE MISTREATED. A STORE MANAGER IS FOR ALL PRACTICAL
PURPOSES THE STORE ITSELF AND NOT SOME DISTANT IVORY TOWER EXECUTIVE.
THE MANAGER OF THE STORE CERTAILY HAS THE AUTHORITY TO KNOCK A FEW
BUCKS OFF AN ITEM IN ORDER TO PLEASE A CUSTOMER. THIS GUY MUST BE
SOMEBODYS SON IN ORDER TO KEEP HIS JOB.

Where I live its next to impossible to find much of anything for boys
except stuff I dont even let my son watch or play with. Its next to
impossible to find any clothes. There might be a couple of racks for
boys and half the store is full of girl's clothes. There is more for
young girls in the stores than for any other gender or age.

There is a store here called "Just for Girls" Its a clothing store but
you can actually have a birthday party there.

Yuck. I hate it. I was never a girly girl and it annoys the heck out
of me to see the clothes that are on the market for young girls. I
would NEVER let my child wear most of that stuff.

As for toys. Have you been in a Toys R Us lately? There is a small
section for boys and literally half the store is for girls. The rest
of the store is clothes, baby supplies or gender neutral. I think of
things like art supplies, books, Legos, and anything pertaining to
animals gender neutral. Anything having to do with dolls, baking
(although I did buy my son a baking set last year..he loves to cook!),
dress up...and anything in a pink, lavender or pastel green
box...girly.

Right now there is almost nothing I can buy my son in the way of
clothes except for PLAY clothes. T-shirts, jeans, shorts, gym sets. My
son goes to a private school and while he can wear t-shirts, jeans,
ext. I like he him to stick to collar shirts and dress pants most of
the week. I bet you anything that right now I couldnt walk into any
Walmart or Target in this city and find anything like that. I could
find him "skater" clothes...but nothing even remotely nice. I could
find clothes with skulls and dragons, and Spiderman on it..but nothing
he could wear to church.

My sister had the same problem with her son and he is all of one year
old. Every woman I talk to in my city has the same complaint. Its like
boys dont exsist! And I live in a very large city! But for some reason
girls are taking over. Hey, I am all for girl power. But give the boys
a break!

Well, being the Target clearance shopper that I am, I can tell you
what happened here. The pink one is on clearance, not sale. And the
blue one is not. Why? Because the blue one is the STANDARD one, and
the pink is a special edition. And guess what? After Christmas, toys
go on clearance. But they aren't going to reduce the ones they carry
year-round. I bet if you had looked at the Leapster, another leap frof
product, you would have seen something similar. The standard blue one
would have probably been full price, while the "special" red one was
more than likely marked down. It happens. Walk ovewre to the clothing
dept. Whats that? This red shirt is on clearance, but its still 19.99
for the black one? Yup. live with it.

The difference between these products is, as you've guessed, the color
of the plastic.

The reason, I assume, for the lower price on the pink one is that it
doesn't sell as well. They likely have more pink ones that they want
and therefore are reducing the price.

There are roughly equal numbers of little boys and little girls in
this country. 100% of the boys get blue ones. The girls: some get
blue ones and some get pink. Let's say 50/50.

Suppose, then, that 1000 kids (500 boys, 500 girls) shop at Target for
this item. This means that they'll sell 750 blue Leap Pads and 250
pink ones. If the store stocked 750 of each, that means they'll have
500 extra pink ones!

Sure, they should have realized this when ordering... but the point
remains that blue ones just happen to be more popular than the pink
ones.

Which brings me to my question: does it REALLY matter if your 6 month
old get a pink Leap Pad? I have a son that same age and, frankly, I
don't think he cares what color his toy is. Nor do I. My older son
(a pre-schooler who DOES know his colors) has a few "girl" items and
it really doesn't matter.

And, yes, it does bother me that there are more cute girls clothes.
But, I deal with it and I don't boycott Target because, golly, I wish
I could buy girls things for my son.

I don't excuse the rudeness you received. However, I can see how your
attitude could have rubbed the employees the wrong way. Your demand
for compensation is a perfect example of this: it's totally offensive
for you to demand compensation because YOU didn't want to buy. YOU
are the one that decided to go to Target. Right? Or were you lured
there based on the promise of cheap blue toys?

Lastly, I don't think the customer service people are in Baghdad.
Some day, maybe. But your little funny does nothing to help your
case. It makes you look ignorant or offensive. Not sure which, but I
don't think you want to be portrayed as either.

Oh, and it's "waste" not "waist." If you're going to jump on someone
for not speaking English, you need to watch your own. We all make
typos, but it's a little ironic that YOU'D be making this mistake,
since you appear to be perfect.

I can't get past, 5200 bucks a year... in target.....
How and, more importantly, WHY does anyone do it?

What's with all the CAPS.

And, honestly - girl stuff and boys stuff?

Get over it. Your SON is 6 months old and doesn't know the
difference.

Incidentally, if you're going to complain about someone not speaking
"english", you might at least want to recognize that the word should
be capitalized.

Sounds like this toy was on clearance and not just "on sale". When
things go on clearance it is because they are trying to get rid of
them. Perhapes the company sound having two colors was not needed and
will only make a blue one now. OR, most likely, the pink one did not
sell very well (girls like blue too!) and they are trying to get rid
of the pink ones faster!

Hmm well perhaps it's better that you save that $100+ per week instead
of spending it, just think that would be $5,200+ saved over the course
of one year...unless you meant that you spend $100+ per week using a
credit card.

I only buy a few shapes of pasta - elbow macaroni, thin spaghetti and
lasagna noodles.

For some reaaon, when certain brands of pasta (notably Ronzoni) go on
sale, only certain varieties are included. Now lasagna is a special
case, but I have always wondered why thin spaghetti is not on sale and
regular is. Elbow now on sale, bow tie is not. Half the varieties on
sale, half not.

This happens with brownie mix also. 8x8 on slae, 9x9 not on sale.
Rich chocolate flavor on sale, Richest flavor known to mankind not on
sale.

I go to the desk now instead of assuming they forgot to put a sale tag
under the one I want. If they tell me it isn't on sale, I put it back
and wait for the next sale. Yes, what I am looking for eventually
goes on sale and maybe the boys whatever does not. Milk never goes on
sale, and I buy it at regular price. Who makes the rules as to what
goes on sale and what doesn't? I don't know.

The manager should not have been rude to you. It does sound from your
letter that you had a tone with them. There are two sides to a story,
and I would be interested in their take. As to who decides what goes
on sale, is that someone there at the store? I can see you making the
suggestion they consider doing that on your item, but I can't see
asking them to honor the price on an item not for sale.

Ah, for corn's sake, buy the blooming pink one!

Believe it or not, colors have nothing to do with gender or
preference or anything else for that matter. Teaching your kid that
'pink is for girls' just reinforces the stereotypes that females are
inherently weaker and/or less worthy.

No one forced you to go to a different store with your kid to buy the
stuff. You could have taken a deep look and realized that surface
color does not have any bearing on acceptability and bought the toy
and saved yourself a lot of trouble.

Oh, and considering the shape that Baghdad is currently in, I think I
can say with some confidence that there are no call centers there.

Ummmm...O...K...

Why, if travelling with a baby is so difficult for you, would you make
separate stops to get all the stuff you needed? I gather from your
letter that you found what you NEEDED at Target, and just happened
upon this leap pad on sale? Why, when you found out you couldn't have
it at the sale price, did you not just get what you NEEDED? Sounds
like it was out of spite, and that's just foolish.

It's not unusual for an item in one color to be discounted more than
an item of a different color. If they were having trouble selling the
pink ones, they probably put them on clearance to get rid of them. I
have three boys, and you know what I'd do if I really wanted to get
the leap pad? I'd buy the pink one, ESPECIALLY if my kid were only 6
months old and doesn't care about the color, because he's too young to
have had "pink is for girls" drilled into his head.

It sucks if you feel the managers were being rude to you, but I get
the feeling you were wearing on them a bit.

ooooohhhhhhh $5200 a year, look out big spender coming through! Target
will be out of business in a week.
Stores have sales to move products they have a hard time selling.
Evidently the little boys stuff sells better. Stores do not have sales
to save YOU money. They have sales to move slow moving merchandise to
avoid a loss.
If Target prices one thing for $10 and a similiar thing for $5, you
have a right to question if it is a mistake. If they tell you it is
not a mistake, why do you think you can name your price?
Different colors ALWAYS have impact on price. Just think of all the
things you buy that cost more if you want them in black. You're out of
line.

If Target responds to your letter, please tell us what it says.
Corporate will take your side on this no matter what the people here
say.

your kidding right? MAYBE they marked it down because they had so many
they had to get rid of some. yea... sometimes the colors DO
matter...some colors are in more demand then others. u shouldnt get
any compensation. Oh by spending ONE DOLLAR u said alot... paLEASE...
oh and its "waste".. not "waist".. waist in your body....

All of this angst-ridden drama could have been avoided had you not
been hung up on the 100% ridiculous notion that blue is for boys and
pink is only for girls. With a nod to society's preference for
gender-specific clothing, there is no harm in just buying him the $10
chear "girl" toy in pink and not making an issue of it.

And as for asking for compensation because you were ANNOYED by a
store's policy? Um, rather pathetic.

I do think they could have given or found for you a better explanation
for why it was the way it was. I'm not sure that would have helped
the situation or made them able to change the price for it but they
could have at least humored you a bit with it instead of disgarding
you.

Your letter is angry though and many times an angry letter won't be
taken seriously.Then you also change the subject and discuss Baghdad
employees. I know a lot of stores are hiring people out of the
country to take these calls because it is cheaper to pay them than to
pay for the same service here.

Oh please, as others pointed out, sale prices are driven by inventory,
not boys as opposed to girls.

Yes, management could have explained it better but at that point, I
don't think you would have accepted anything less than the blue one
for the pink price.

As far as compensation, forget it. You were browsing and did not go
there specifically for that product, it kind of makes it moot that it
was a wasted trip.

I won't even get into the spelling and like grammar in this letter.

Others on this site have already corrected your actions Tonya.

As another poster put it, you even wanted the blue version and
wouldn't buy the pink for $10 less.

It is further embarrassing for you to request compensation because you
chose not to purchase anything on that trip to the store. In the
future, you really should conduct your affairs with a little more
dignity.

They did the same thing with game boy advances, most of them were for
one price, but one particular colour that is popular was $20 more.
They made it more because people are willing to pay more money for a
different colour. However by being demanding you probably handled
this wrong. Sounds like the manager needed to get firm to stand up to
you and make his point across.

You admit yourself:

"And now with a toy that is EXACTLY the same thing only a different
COLOR, its a difference of over $10 for this ONE toy?"

If it's EXACTLY the same except for the color, why wouldn't you buy it
for your son? A six-month-old does not have preconceived stereotypes
that certain colors "go with" each gender. You are the one with the
problem, not Target.

FYI: I took my infant son to the ER while he was wearing a PINK footed
sleeper and a PINK diaper, because that's what he was wearing when he
became ill. You use what you've got. I'm not just speaking
theoretically when I say that the color doesn't matter. By the time
your son will be able to name colors, you'll have bought a different
LeapFrog for him. And you, as parents, will be the ones to teach him
that pink is a "girl" color and unworthy of him.

Of course you're reading WAY too much into this. The system that
decides the prices and what goes on sale/clearance is basically
nothing more than a computer that looks at inventory levels of each
item number. If the inventory is too big, it's going to get a little
more of a mark down. The computer just sees two different item numbers
and not "boy" Baby Leaps vs. "girl" Baby Leaps. The girl baby leaps
didn't sell as well, so they get a bigger price cut. The manager
really should have explained this to you, and if your recollection of
events is accurate, he did act in an unprofessional manner. However,
you lose a lot of points by asking for "compensation for this wasted
trip", even though you point out at the beginning that you went to the
store to browse and happened to find these deals, you didn't make a
trip specifically for this item.

Although I agree that the way management approached this problem was
unprofessional you had no right to demand a sale price on an item that
wasn't on sale, no matter how closly it resembled another product.

The pink version was probably on sale because it didn't sell as well
as the blue one.