Math is not most people’ strong suit.
I mean, the Pennys are notorious, but working in retail I learned to expect a lack of basic arithmetic.
Way back in college I shopped at a local supermarket that would have sales like 15 cents each, or 6 for a dollar…
and some people would buy 6 to get the sale price.
(You can tell how long ago that was by anything costing 15 cents!)
Years later a woman wanting to buy three of something from me for $30 each asked whether I would take $100 for all three…
I said I’d even take $90…. I thought she’d realise, and laugh… but she thanked me profusely.
In the 90’s, managing a chocolate shop in a mall… our scale read in decimal parts of a pound… like you see on hamburger packages at the supermarket.
A customer would ask for, say, a quarter of a pound… just as an example….
she’d choose pieces till the scale said .35 lb… then she’d say, “Oh, I guess 35 ounces is OK.”
My staff did the same thing…. I learned to bite my tongue.
As long as they understood each other, everybody was happy and no one was insulted.
Then later, helping out in a clothing store….
They had semi-annual sales where everything was 25% off.
One day they switched to buy one full price, get a second item 50% off.
Since it had to be the least expensive that was half price, they made more money.
But the customers, just like the Pennys, would remark that the new sales were better, because they got something for 50% off.
Math is not most people’ strong suit.
I mean, the Pennys are notorious, but working in retail I learned to expect a lack of basic arithmetic.
Way back in college I shopped at a local supermarket that would have sales like 15 cents each, or 6 for a dollar…
and some people would buy 6 to get the sale price.
(You can tell how long ago that was by anything costing 15 cents!)
Years later a woman wanting to buy three of something from me for $30 each asked whether I would take $100 for all three…
I said I’d even take $90…. I thought she’d realise, and laugh… but she thanked me profusely.
In the 90’s, managing a chocolate shop in a mall… our scale read in decimal parts of a pound… like you see on hamburger packages at the supermarket.
A customer would ask for, say, a quarter of a pound… just as an example….
she’d choose pieces till the scale said .35 lb… then she’d say, “Oh, I guess 35 ounces is OK.”
My staff did the same thing…. I learned to bite my tongue.
As long as they understood each other, everybody was happy and no one was insulted.
Then later, helping out in a clothing store….
They had semi-annual sales where everything was 25% off.
One day they switched to buy one full price, get a second item 50% off.
Since it had to be the least expensive that was half price, they made more money.
But the customers, just like the Pennys, would remark that the new sales were better, because they got something for 50% off.