Price Matching (2)

Regarding the internet and price matching: I had a customer who bought an expensive item from us and when he bought it he asked if he found the item cheaper somewhere else, would we match the price. Sure, says the employee. If I knew which employee that was, I just might kill him or her.

The man came back on a busy weekend with some internet printouts. Ebay had the item for half of what we charge. I called the store manager (bothering her again, even though she isn't back or being paid!) but she wasn't sure if we could match that. So I called the regional manager to ask her. Surprise, she answered her phone on the weekend. She said that we don't match Ebay prices. I told that to the guy. He wasn't thrilled, but showed me ANOTHER printout, from one of our retail competitor's online stores. That one was $40 cheaper than ours. I said that we COULD match that price, but I'd have to add shipping and handling on. The customer didn't like the amount of shipping and handling that we're told to add on. I told him that if I had it in writing what that website charges for shipping and handling, then I could use that instead. OK, he'd come back later.

He did, indeed, come back later. I told him I'd do it like a regular return, then resell him the item. Suddenly he couldn't find his receipt, and accused me of keeping it. Do you WANT me to throw you out of the store?! He looked in his car again, and found it. Then as I was doing the return and selling it to him again at the cheaper price, he said the internet site doesn't charge sales tax, either. OH COME ON!!

"Sir, the internet stores operate under different laws than us. I can't NOT charge you the sales tax. The government wants their money. The state requires me to charge sales tax unless you're part of a non-profit organization, in which case I would need verification of that." (And my company certainly doesn't want to pay the tax for him.) He didn't claim to be a non-profit, so we finished the transaction, I CLEARLY marked the receipts as to what I had done and why (so if he tries to come back later he can't return the item for the full price, etc.).

All of this on a busy weekend, a combined 20~30 minutes of my time!