Photo by BuhSnarf, some rights reserved
Supermarket giant Tesco was celebrating a retail landmark today – the accidental charging of two ‘buy one get one free’ items at their respective full prices.
The incident represents the culmination of a push by Tesco that has become known in the retail as ‘dimished product clarity’. The grocer says the move has dovetailed with an increased effort to push the importance of ‘enhanced customer extraction’ among it’s staff.
“This is wonderful news for everyone at Tesco,” beamed Profitability Manager Stefan Gradgrind.
“Due to these one million unfortunate incidents we’ve managed to raise an additional £780,000 in the last three years. And the beauty of these regrettable incidents is that the customer doesn’t perceive any drop in value whatsoever.
“In fact, the vast majority of our customers who are involved in these accidental upscaled transactions actually feel like they’ve come away with a bargain,” said Gradgrind.
“It’s the perfect cr… Er, Spend Maximisation.”
Tesco says that the majority of incidents where customers end up being charged up to double the price they expected were down to ‘Customer Misdirection’ transactions, due to ‘Information Clarity Downsizing’ – but a significant minority could be blamed ‘on the tills’.
The one millionth customer, Jack Goy, was squinting, puzzled, at his receipt upon leaving a Tesco Metro store when Gradgrind broke the good news.
“I bought these two fajita kits cos they were Buy One Get One Free,” said Goy, scratching his head and weighing up a lengthy queue at the available customer service desk.
“Now it transpires they were four quid each,” said Goy, who wins a free holiday he will have to pay for.
“I don’t even like fajitas,” said Goy unhappily as he screwed up his receipt and threw it to the floor.”
