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Canton of BernThe fries are in action at Migros, he empties the freezer all by himself
A reader got annoyed when a store customer took away all the stock of a discounted product. Migros says the cases are rare.
Either this client has a very large family, or he had one hell of a craving.
20min/Reader-reporter
No one knows if the man loves fries, if he was planning a big party or if he just has a compulsive reflex to buy as soon as a product is in action, in any case, he took it all. The scene took place in a Migros branch in Lyss (BE), photographed by an angry customer. “This every man for himself is outrageous,” he says, as he himself just happened to enjoy the action on frozen fries. He left empty-handed, the freezer having been emptied of stock.
Migros indicates that this type of case is exceptional. Its processes allow for the forecasting of the quantities necessary so that the stocks are sufficient to cover the duration of a promotion. As they are usually sufficient, there is no reason to limit the number of items each customer can carry. The company says, however, that in some rare cases, sales exceed expectations in the first few days and staff may be asked, diplomatically, to encourage customers to buy only “usual quantities for a household”. . But as the needs vary from one household to another, the task cannot be precisely defined.
“Social control is lacking in retail; at most, you get a few sideways glances,” says economic psychologist Christian Fichter. According to him, this attitude is not to be adopted by consumers, although it is obviously not prohibited. If there was a reason to buy a stock product in bulk, the customer would have done well to approach the staff first to ask whether or not this bulk purchase was acceptable to them.
(mur/ywe)