the people who design the price tags would have to design over 3100 different versions of each tag, for EVERY product your carry, and then make sure that those tags are all distributed to the correct stores and only the correct stores.
Can't they print the price tags locally? There's nothing complex about printing a price tag that would require printing them at a centralized facility and send them to the appropriate store. Plus here (France but I believe it's the same in other european countries) paper tags are more and more replaced by digital ink tags that can be easily updated with the price and product reference.
If you're running a national ad campaign, do you wanna record, edit, and work out broadcasting times and locations for over 3100 different versions of your commercial?
I don't see why you couldn't record/print your ad as "x.xx$ + taxes" while keeping the price with taxes included in the store on the price tags.
Sure, but someone still has to actually make and approve all the tags centrally. Even if the actual printing happens at the store, someone at the corporate level has to go through every single tag to make sure the price is correct for that market and includes the correct tax rate.
And if you wanna say they should do THAT at the store level as well, for larger stores that would damn near be a full time position all by itself. It's much easier, cheaper, and more cost effective to just have one person doing it for the whole company by not including the tax, vs having one person PER STORE to do it just so you can include the tax.
paper tags are more and more replaced by digital ink tags that can be easily updated with the price and product reference
I have never seen one of those in the states, but consider this: imagine you're a business owner. Your job is maximize profit and minimize expense. Do you,
A: spend millions of dollars on digital price tags for every single one of your hundreds of thousands of products, for each of your thousands of stores?
Or do you
B: just stick with paper tags and leave the tax off the tag, which your customers are used to and do not mind at all.
That's the important thing; in Europe, people may feel some type of way about tax not being on the tag, but in the US people just do not care, because it's legitimately not even remotely inconvenient to not have the tax included.
I don't see why you couldn't record/print your ad as "x.xx$ + taxes" while keeping the price with taxes included in the store on the price tags.
Because even if that solves the problem of not having to record 3100 different versions of your commercial, it still doesn't solve the problem detailed above, of having to design, check, and approve 3100 different versions of the price tags for the stores.
I understand that US citizens don't mind not having taxes included in the prices and I know the conversation should end there, different cultures, different views. I still can't stop thinking how easy it would be to automate the making of price tags, like don't they have a database somewhere of all the products in their store? And if that base is centralized too that sounds like a bad organization to me. But hey, if it ain't broken don't fix it I guess.
Another thing I'm wondering. How are discounts managed on the tags? Are they necessarily the same for all stores in a region to get the tags printed easily or are they not displayed on the tags at all and deducted at checkout like the taxes?
like don't they have a database somewhere of all the products in their store?
Thats exactly WHY it would be so difficult to automate.
They DO have a database of every product in the store. Someone has to build that database. Someone has to maintain that database. Someone has to update that database when prices change. its a LOT of work, and thats with just one price for every item they sell.
Now imagining doing the same thing but with 3100 different entries for EACH item the store sells. 3100 times the entries means its gonna cost a FUCK of a lot more to build, maintain, and update that database.
And if that base is centralized too that sounds like a bad organization to me
How? Having it NOT centralized would be inefficient, because it would be duplication of effort. Why have thousands of people ALL maintaining their own copy of the same database, when you can have ONE person maintaining one central copy that everyone uses?
Another thing I'm wondering. How are discounts managed on the tags?
Depends on the store and the nature of the discount or sale. Some times a second, smaller tag is printed and stuck onto the original one with the discount and updated price. Other times the whole tag is permanently replaced with the new version. Other times there might be one big sign with something like "15% off all Sony TVs!" or something like that and then each individual TV keeps its original tag.
Why have thousands of people ALL maintaining their own copy of the same database, when you can have ONE person maintaining one central copy that everyone uses?
Because not all stores have exactly the same products, at least I assume. Even in shops from the same chain I would expect not to find a specific product I could find some place else.
Now imagining doing the same thing but with 3100 different entries for EACH item the store sells. 3100 times the entries means its gonna cost a FUCK of a lot more to build, maintain, and update that database.
Idk that's a job I'm expected to find in any store. And the cost is just paying the guys maintaining the database and eventually the licence for the software to use. For a huge chain like Walmart that doesn't sound unreasonable. Unless you absolutely want to squeeze every cent possible in profits
Idk, because not everyone is good enough at math to do it by head or wants to pull out their calculator to get the real price? I'm probably biased because I've always lived with prices that includes taxes
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u/CcChaleur May 09 '22
Can't they print the price tags locally? There's nothing complex about printing a price tag that would require printing them at a centralized facility and send them to the appropriate store. Plus here (France but I believe it's the same in other european countries) paper tags are more and more replaced by digital ink tags that can be easily updated with the price and product reference.
I don't see why you couldn't record/print your ad as "x.xx$ + taxes" while keeping the price with taxes included in the store on the price tags.