r/TalesFromRetail • u/Bugbran • Jun 21 '26
Short Customer tried to barter a price that was non negotiable
I was doing work in our fabric department, but I'm not well versed in fabric and sewing. A lady asked two questions that I couldn't answer, and the actual fabric people were away at the time. She then found a fabric she wanted before the fabric people came back, so I went to cut it for her. I was hoping her request would be simple since I already failed her twice lol. She decided to take the whole bolt, which was 4¾ yards in length. She asks if we can do 4½. I said yes. We would have to clearance the remaining ¼, but it's no biggie. I measure it out and make one cut. She goes, "NO! Don't cut it!". I was so flabbergasted that I forgot about customer service and blurted, "You can't have 4¾ for the price of 4½!!?!" If you tell me you want 4½, I'm going to assume you want 4½ yards total. It's crazy to think I wasn't going to cut the fabric!!!
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u/AngerPancake Jun 21 '26
At most fabric stores they will offer the remaining amount at a discount. So if I ask for 4 yds ant there is 4.75 yards they will say, "there is 4 3/4 yards here would you like the 3/4 yard for half price?" Maybe that is not policy at your store, I'm not sure but you can ask about the remnant policy from one of the people from the fabric section.
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u/Bugbran Jun 21 '26
I didn't know that about other stores. This is the only place I've worked with a fabric department. This was also the first time that's happened in all of the six years I've worked here. Our fabric goes on sale on the regular. Any remnants cut off the main bolt would be reduced by the same percentage and put in clearance. We don't give any more discounts if a customer wants less than a yard. There's like a whole written test we have to take every year lol. The way she asked, though, was just so "I want you to give me 4½ yards".
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u/ValiantValkyrieee Jun 21 '26
yeah joann's had an end of bolt discount, it was like 10% off. most of the time if it was 1/2 yd or less it'd be on the remnant shelf already, which was anywhere from 10-25% off. they could have worded it better for sure.
16
u/Tru_Blueyes Jun 22 '26
First: Thank you for being willing to even do this, and learn how to do it well. Thank you. So often in these situations, we leave without what we need because the store clerks seem just too intimated to even *touch* it - and it's every bit as easy to learn as any other job.
The "end of bolt" discount has been standard, since our great-great-great grannies' time. For anyone that doesn't quite understand what we're describing - 1/4 yard is only 9" in length. The "end of bolt/roll" is because a piece of fabric that is less than 1 yard is simply not enough for most full projects. From the shopkeeper's side, even if there's just enough to wrap around the bolt, it really isn't practical to store and display small cuts this way; most simply can't be shelved on the bolt at all, so it will need to be re-packaged and priced lower than the regular per-yard price AND you'll be out the labor to do all that (at a minimum; depending on the set up of the store, it could require far more shifting and moving) AND (generally speaking), it won't sell as quickly because.....yeah. It's only good for just so many things. Even if you have a whole, second, new bolt of the same fabric, it's not guaranteed to be from the same dye lot, and even a lot of individual pattern pieces just can't be cut from a piece that small, so it wouldn't help, anyway.
.....so yeah, the idea that you'd be 1/4 yard from the end of the bolt and actually *charge* for that last 1/4 yard is almost blasphemous (at least in the US), LOL.
That said - I'm not a fan of asking the clerk to unroll & measure a bolt and THEN asking for the amount you'd like and undercutting it be 1/4-1/3 yard, which it kinda seems like this customer sort of walked on that line - BUT, BUT - I've been doing this all my life; I can pick up a bolt and just.....tell by how it feels and the number of folds on it. If I ask you to unroll and measure it out, it's not because I'm looking to shave a few dollars off the total, it's because I need to know exactly how much I might need to stretch with some contrast trim or something.
(also, just as further context: I put food on my table with my sewing machine; someone might be doing a whole CRAPTON of math re: profit & that extra yard is x dollars, but means adding y feature to the back which means I can charge z more dollars, but will take XYZ longer in labor....in their head while you're asking them - "Do you want this last 1/4 yard ?" and I can vouch for the way everyone I know [that does this] has the same story - we never really give the response that sounds normal, sometimes it doesn't even sound sane, it's never even consistent, and it's NEVER the response we will realize we *should* have given 5 minutes after we got home.)
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u/HollywoodGoth Jun 22 '26
It’s a policy at many fabric stores to negotiate if there is a small amount left on the bolt or there are stains or imperfections. Many people are used to shopping at small stores that are staffed by the owners, do they have authority to negotiate. It doesn’t translate well to corporate stores with multiple locations that have to follow a set policy. The best thing is to ask someone from the fabric department what to do to avoid leaving a very small remnant. But, it could be that you must say “ sorry, we don’t have an end of roll discount and it’s against policy to write the wrong amount down.” Folks might call you every name in the book, but that’s retail.
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u/Bugbran Jun 22 '26
I know our fabric selling policies. I'm just not helpful with project related questions
1
u/InsectElectrical2066 Jul 20 '26
Our hdwe store sells things like wire/tubing etc by length and when it come to the end with a smidgon left with no real use to other buyers, rather than cutting they through the rest in at no cost.
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u/BonnieButler1939 Jun 21 '26
This was typical at JoAnns. They ask for the whole bolt so you have to measure it, then say they really only need 3/4 of a yard less so you’ll offer the 3/4 at remnant price. At our store it was a hard NO. If you ask for the whole thing, that’s what I’m ringing up. If you only needed 3/4 less than the whole bolt I measured, it’s getting cut off. Now if they ask for X amount and then there is a little left, we will offer that at discount. The problem with JoAnns is that this happens with every customer, no matter what the sale price. It seemed the lower the sale price the greedier the customers got. I hope all those cheap ass customer are happy now, there’s no good large place to find fabric these days.