Embracing Technology

Good for Governor Rick Snyder!  He has decided that the item pricing law needs to be scrapped.  It is redundant in a world of UPCs and computer technology.  And not only am I pumping my own gas, I am ringing up my own groceries and bagging them!

I understand that consumers' rights groups say that some of us get taken by not having items marked individually.  And I agree.  In the last two weeks I had two instances of having items rung up at the wrong amount.  One was clearly marked with a lower price, but ran incorrectly and had to be adjusted.  One item had a sale price on the shelf, but rang up for full-price at the register.  It was adjusted to the lower price even though the shelf price was out-dated and had not been removed. 

Now, it is quite possible that even labeled and rung incorrectly, I may never had noticed the errors.  How many people actually check every item?  I do not.  I just happened to catch these two.  But what does it cost to put all these labels on items?  And am I not paying for that cost when I shop?

Doing my Christmas shopping I bought several items for gifts with labels on them.  When I got home, I discovered that removing the labels was next to impossible. It appeared that they had been super-glued to the items.  I later learned that the store had changed to the non-removable labels because folks would switch labels and then argue with the cashier when the items were rung up based on the UPC price.  And who can forget the women who were arrested for changing prices in a store with their own price-gun?

The product price law is an idea whose time has come and gone.  I'll rely on the UPC and hope for the best versus ending up with a price tag that may belong to a different item.

As for the store that gave me the out-dated sale price, it was nice of them.  But now they are losing money and that will cost customers more in the future. 

As for the people who will lose jobs pricing cans in the supermarket, maybe we can train them as cashiers so that folks who cannot figure out how to ring up their own groceries (drives me nuts) can have someone else do it for them.