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When I say RAD is wrong, wrong, wrong, I mean it literally. There is a store located a few blocks from my office that I shop at perhaps once a month. Yesterday I bought a few things and was amazed at how bad their accounting was.
My primary mission was to acquire some toothpaste, but there are always a few tempting sale items. When I was checking out I discovered that the sports drink for sale at "5 for $5 dollars" was a mistake and the sign in the store display should have been taken down because the offer had expired. Another item I purchased was marked down from $3.99 to $1.99, great deal! . . . but they told me that the sale price was placed on the wrong shelf for that product and what I wanted was not on sale.
In fairness, I must admit they honored both goofs and I received the bargains (only to leave the money at the gas station later), but that's not the end of the story.
When I was leaving the check stand, a staff member came up the the manager and informed her that upon opening her register it was short $20. So how can this company survive while it is so fraught with errors, losing money from every angle?
One more bad sign: every month when I go to the store I never see the same staff.
Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I do not own shares in RAD.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1. They advertised Chock Full of Nuts Coffe on sale for $2.50 . Went in to buy it on a Sun and the clerk said the shipment did not arrive They gave me a raincheck and said they expected a shipment on Fri. Went in on Fri and no coffee....they do this all the time. Also found products on the shelf with past "use by dates." I've decided not to shop there anymore - it is a waste of time.
Posted at 3:14PM on Jul 2nd 2008 by Mary Jane.
2. Rite Aid is wrong x3 because... 2 goofs on supposed sale items are honored anyway. Isn't that kind of harsh? You were given good customer service to rectify the situation. If you wanted something more maybe you should have said so at the time. Instead, you have to act like a drama queen on the internet. How sad.
Posted at 10:31PM on Jul 2nd 2008 by Craig
3. Craig,
No drama, and satisfied with the repsonse to the goofs. The 3rd wrong was the short cash box. The reason for the story is RAD is dying a slow death, losing money, in part because of how the business is run -- or not.
Posted at 1:58AM on Jul 3rd 2008 by Sheldon L
4. I work for them and have in past when they bought California stores.
They MIS-manage their business in three ways; overpricing, poor item selection, and understaffing.
Along the line, they have overworked, demoralizied and alienated their underpaid staff.
The management that would still put any dollars into stainless steel letters over departments while bleeding at 15 million dollar a day loss rate should be held accountable by someone.
In the recently acquired Brooks-Eckerd stores, they did not even send the items back they were no longer going to carry...they just sit in backrooms to be re-inventoried again.
Loyal cusotmers, who once shopped the whole store while waiting for a prescription no longer even look at anything but the specials, which just end up, on sale, at Targets' every day prices.
Shame on the banks taking 30 cents of every sales dollar....how mean of you to feed executive egos like that!
Posted at 2:16PM on Jul 3rd 2008 by Quiet QTIP
5. I currently work for a Rite Aid. As far as the sale sign being placed under the wrong product, well we are all human and make mistakes. Many stores, not just the Rite Aid Compnay, have done this. I think they were more than generous to even give you the sale price as the sign clearly expresses the ending date of the sale.
As I was reading other comments posted, I can only say that many of these comments are being posted without the greater thought. Quite frankly by alot of ignorant people who would rather moan, groan and complain than to take a few minutes and put themselves in other peoples shoes or think logically about a situation.
As far as the outdates, there are several people that are held accountable for this. And these people are the staff! It is the responsibility of the staff to make sure that the products they sell are fresh. Why hold the company accountable when this issue falls on a store level.
I loved the comment about the mis-managed ways of this company. Rite Aid, like many companys DO NOT like to waste money. As far as a cashier missing $20.00 from a drawer, the cashier is held accountable for this and if they repeat this one more time, they are terminated!
Heres a touchy comment- Payroll for the employees. While staffing may seem low, Rite Aid like many companies want to hire "go-getters" and people who want to better the company they work for. Unfortunately this doesn't always happen. You get a variety of people. That is perhaps why many people see knew employess. Many have thought that they could waste time and goof off, but Rite Aid is "the real deal" when it comes to working. Either you make the cut or you don't.
Heres some food for thought. Rite Aid has a program in which they reward employees that give it there all. I'm sure few of you knew that.
They key in this company is the employees that work for every store. You experience is based soley on this fator. Did someone say hello when you walked through the door, did they ask if you needed help finding something? Overall did they go out of their way to provide you good customer service?
As far as the Chock-o-nuts or however you spell the coffee, On countless occasions the warehouse has not sent sale items to a store. And the raincheck is good at any Rite Aid, so maybe take a detour to a different Rite Aid!!
I am not denying that there are kinks in the system and that need to be worked out, but on the other hand some people take too many things for granted and need to start appreciating their local Rite Aid.
I originally worked under the Brooks/Eckerd Company for several years and shortly for the current Rite Aid Company. I can assuridly say that the kink in this company is at the store level. As far as some stores closing a day a week because of no Pharmacist. This is an easy question to answer. There is a natioanl shortage of pharmacists! If you want to get a script refilled then do it a few days in advanced, DON'T WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE 1 PILL LEFT!!
PLease e-mail me if you have any questions or comments. Yzspx700@yahoo.com
-Kyle
Posted at 11:57AM on Jul 8th 2008 by Kyle
6. Kyle,
In response to your comments, I also work for rite aid after 15 years with Brooks and it is so funny to see the difference in perception by 2 people working for the same company. I am a pharmacist and am often embarrased by the rite aid ways. We have to let our techs go to the office to cash out their drawers at the end of a shift which is generally around the busiest time of the day and the new tech coming on has to count down theirs and basically we have one register for 30-40 minutes and lines of people waiting to pick up the prescriptions, its really awful and I have asked on several occasions for a solution only to be assured it would be taken care of and nothing done. As far as sale items, we are always, always out of them and always, always getting yelled at for this. Its getting tiresome, as is the fact that the otc prices are much higher than other chains as we are reminded on a daily basis by customers. Your comment about trying for a sale item at another store is sort of silly as most people are after the sale item to save money and with the price of gas, they don't want, nor should they have to travel to different rite aids to purchase a sale item!!Rite aid should do itself a favor and really listen and respond to the comments and suggestions of the people who are mostly responsible for the customers walking through the door, and that is the pharmacists!! There are alot of relatively simple things rite aid could do for their employees and their customers to help foster a better overall feeling about rite aid but I dont feel like they want to listen to us.
Posted at 9:26AM on Jul 10th 2008 by nancy hudlin
7. Nancy:
I think there is a complete difference in perception. As there are two sides to every story, this is certainly one of those occasions. Rite Aid is now over 5,000 stores strong. No one is denying Rite Aid had to take a major "loan" to do this. If I had it my way to I would certainly designate more hours for both RX and FE. But because of the current economic status and our "debt", everyone has to pull together to stay strong during these rough times. I am in this for the long haul. I would be more interested to talk to you about this. E-mail me if you would like. Yzspx700@yahoo.com
Posted at 11:21PM on Jul 11th 2008 by Yzspx700
8. From those 2 perceptions I bet one is from a Union store and one is non union. Another difference I bet is Former Eckerd store. I also worked at a Rite Aid that acquired an Eckerd Store. I slowly watched our regular customers dissappear. Why longer waits in the pharmacy, their new system has taken us 5 steps backwards. The shortness of payroll dollars. We are constantly out of sale items. We don't carry the selection we use to carry. I totally agree with QuitQtip they are so mismanaged in more that 3 ways. Overpricing, Understaffing, Longer pharmacy waits, poor item selection, lack of sale items, Demorilzing their store managers and staff. I don't want to hear that the economy is to blame. If they have money to pay a group of people to chip away at gum in the parking lot and paint a building that has been freshly painted, they have money to staff the stores properly. The problem is they are not properly proritizing. They go an upgrade stores with new registers and systems and then close them down. So what happens to the new equiptment. They went and reset new stores with new fixtures while closing stores that already have them. Hmm! Logically close the underperforming store and recycle the fixtures. Walk into a CVS and you will wait 20 minutes - 1 hour maximum for a prescription. Walk into a Rite aid 2 hours to 7 hours sometimes even come back tommorow. Why because of the understaffing. An horrible upper management. My particular store got a Pharmacist that could't manage a store doing 100 prescriptions a day. My store was doing 250. This pharmacist has slowly gotten rid of all our customers. Upper management doesn't listen to their employees, and now the store suffers. All they see is sales going down and are not looking for the cause. Lets just cut hours. That is not the answer. Customer service is all about employees if you don't have them who is going to help the customer. The cashier that is stuck behind the register. Or the manager that is stuck in the backroom taking in an order.And as far as Riteaid recognizing their employees are you kidding me. What do they get a pin and a gift card to spend in a Rite Aid. Genovese had an employee of the month. Every month not every 4 and it came along with a check for your recognition that you can spend anyway you want. Rite aid will not last long they are slowly bringing the Eckerd Stores down. And closing them one by one to save their own. But too bad they won't last either. Ask the customers!!!!!!!!!!! They know.
Posted at 12:19AM on Jul 13th 2008 by marie
9. Lets see where do I start. Yes on countless occasions we do not get our sale items that we have properly ordered through our ad solicitations. Fact is customers don't care that the warehouse didn't send it. They are sick of coming into our stores on the first day of our sale and we don't have it. Yes they take the Rain check but we don't get in until several weeks later. Guess what next week samething happens. The week after we just lost that customer. They don't want to go to another Rite Aid. Every company wants to hire go getters it is up to the manager to hire them. Their process is not enough. You do not get the perfect employee. Rite aid reward program is a joke. The employees laugh at it. They dont want a pin and gift card that is good only at a Rite aid. Shortage of Pharmacist has nothing to do with it. They do not offer pharmacist incentives to want to work for us rather than our competitors.Pharmacists do not want to ring on a register because we are understaffed, knowing their systems are horrible to begin with. And lastly yes the customer does get greeted at the door by the cashier who is not going to help the customer down the aisle she can only tell them what aisle to walk to. That my friend is not customer service. On outdates lets see we check dates as do all the stores but when the warehouse is sending you outdated merchandise because Rite Aid is also mismanaging them as well that is where the problems lye. Do you train your employees to check dates on the orders they are packing out??????????? How much sales does your store do? Because here in New York things get pretty hectic and I have yet to see a company succeed as well as Genovese did. Except for CVS. Why? Because the majority of them are runned by Genovese managers that are all about customer service and know how to properly manage!! Good luck to you you are on a shinking ship.
Posted at 12:46AM on Jul 13th 2008 by marie
10. Hi everyone, I don't know much about the retail pharmacy/drugstore biz, but I see red flags all over some of the things being stated here. One person actually blames store-level staff (not management) for outdated items being put back on shelves for sales??! There's an old saying, "The fish stinks from the head down, not the tail up!" meaning, it's MANAGEMENT who sets the tone, not store-level personnel. If a store or chain stinks, it's because of management, and usually higher than store-level.
Just look at Home Depot prior to Bob Nardelli taking the helm. What a great place to work! At least, that's what the feedback was from all the people I talked with, and the stores reflected the uniqueness of their niche. Then Nardelli took over as CEO, and you could see the (negative) changes in stores overnight.
By contrast, look at Costco! What a great organization! No hideously overpaid executives. Store personnel have a vested interest in the continued profitability. Great organization from the head down, as it should be.
I suspect Rite Aid suffers from the same misguided management, passing the buck when it's clear the chain needs a big overhaul, not only in management, but a review of competitors, their stock, their store layouts, purge their ranks of stupid people, invest in updated technology, close unprofitable stores, stop gauging their product prices (they're doing this to makeup for their revenue shortfalls...big mistake because their competitors will out-sell them! people are bargain-hunting, high gas pushing costs of goods & services up, up, up!). In short, they need to stop acting like K-Mart's executive management acted even after it went into bankruptcy. Stop being greedy and start earning YOUR paychecks!
Posted at 12:37PM on Jul 15th 2008 by Jubie
11. I also worked at a Rite Aid store - as a pharmacist. I have a background in accounting & inventory control. Let me tell you what I know are the facts.
When its time for inventory RA shifts inventory into and out of stores "on paper" to make their inventory add up. The "blame their managers for their short commings and the constant verbal and physical abuse suffered at their hands is no joke. I was actually verbally chastised in front of staff because I refused to fill a forged RX. The RX's are half filled and then the remaining rx is almost never picked up- however the insurance companies are not re-imbursed. And do not talk to be about $20, the registers are always short, and the front employees have keys to the Pharmacy wich is in direct violation of the state & fed law. I went to another store to cover for the pharmacist and the store casshier, not a manager or assistant manager let me into the pharmacy. I also came in to the store early one day to find "store security" in the pharmacy filling rx's in my screen, as they have total acesss to your company given passwords. LOL LOL LOL do not tell me RA cares about employees or customers. When the computer was uplinked to CA - I could only fill 1 rx every 30 minutes - the custmers practically lynched me. I've had my tires slashed and beer bottles broken on my auto because of the area of town yet not security to help. I still break out in a sweat and get sick to my stomach at the mention of their name. I truly do not understand why the Gov does not go after them like they did Pharmor?? could it be the gov has loaned them money (our tax dollars) to stay afloat?
Posted at 11:40AM on Aug 7th 2008 by JOASBLESSING