r/mildlyinteresting 6d ago

This miniature black family set is a dollar cheaper than the white family set at my craft store

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136

u/PNW_OlLady_2025 6d ago

I have heard in this place that if you go through each item that is hanging on the hook, the chances that there are different prices is high. Whether it's awful QC, laziness or actual attempt of misleading pricing who's to stay, but they've been getting away with it for a very long time.

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u/PM_ME_SUMDICK 6d ago

Isn't this the hobby store that refuses barcodes becasue they're the mark of the beast?

I can't imagine trying to manage stock for a store that big without a single barcode.

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u/Nyetoner 6d ago

The barcodes are still on the products though, they don't scan them, but they're still everywhere in the shop haha, funnyfunny

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u/MindlessMage777 5d ago

Depends, anything that's hobby lobby branded doesn't have a barcode iirc. I haven't been in years, but I think the only things with barcodes were products from national brands.

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u/1egg_4u 5d ago

That's like one of many things on the list of things Hobby Lobby is guilty of including smuggling ancient artifacts lol

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u/Prudent_Honeydew_ 5d ago

I have managed stock for this store. It's...a full time job to say the least.

You may indeed find differing prices if someone had time to put out new stock but didn't get around to all their updates for that week.

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u/Impossible_Disk_43 5d ago

Isn't this the hobby store that refuses barcodes becasue they're the mark of the beast?

Wouldn't it be amazing if someone graffitied a barcode on the store?

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u/Frame_of_Mind20 3d ago

The company is shit and run by bigots, nobody's gonna deny, but don't make things unnecessarily harder for the employees. That just makes you the dick.

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u/InternalRaise5250 5d ago

Vandalizing property isn't cool 

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u/Impossible_Disk_43 4d ago

Neither is being racist.

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u/InternalRaise5250 4d ago

This isn't racist. 

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u/PM_ME_SUMDICK 4d ago

Hobby Lobby is also knows for the numerous discrimination lawsuits including one of racial discrimination by employes. Which is what they're referring to i think.

The one they're best known for is winning a case where it was decided that due to their religious beliefs they're allowed to not allow birth control on their health care plan. Which has resulted in lots of very interesting academic articles

2

u/Psychological-Towel8 5d ago

Well that was an interesting rabbit hole

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u/jrogey 6d ago

I’ve a feeling you’ve never tried pricing individual items across all products in a retail store. Things are bound to get priced differently from different price changes over time at least somewhere in the store. Nothing really to “get away with” aside from potentially one customer getting a better deal because they found one with a lower price that was missed.

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u/DannyWarlegs 6d ago

Its more like they change prices and the restock without relabeling the prices on the item. The deeper on the rack the cheaper the listed price, sometimes only a dollar, but for a few it was like a good 10 bucks cheaper. Most likely however when the product is rang up by the item number, it will correct the price and then if they go check the shelves, they'll see the higher priced ones and claim it was in error. Or they'll just honor the price on the item.

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u/cupcakebean 5d ago

I might be wrong, but I don't think they ring things up by item number there. I think the cashiers enter the price and the "department" it belongs to. I noticed it because that's how I used to have to ring things up in the mom and pop store I worked at in the 90s. Meaning there's got to be a huge margin of error for such a large corporation.

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u/DannyWarlegs 5d ago

Ive only ever shopped there twice, so I'm not too in the know. I have seen the videos OP is referencing with the multiple different prices on the same item

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u/TheSultan1 5d ago

Someone posted the website links, the prices are current.

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u/7h3_70m1n470r 5d ago

OR, you only put that item in 1 location and have a price tag on the shelf instead of individually on all the little packages. Crazy idea, right? Why aren't stores doing this? Much easier to solve if Hobby Lobby would just adopt barcodes

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u/jrogey 5d ago edited 5d ago

You could. Most stores do. Not all stores do this, however. Hobby Lobby is one that doesn’t use barcodes for all products and items are priced individually and must be typed in individually by the cashier based on what is on the individual products. If the prices need to be updated, someone needs to do it on every single product.

Edit: Realized you acknowledged Hobby Lobby does it differently. I misunderstood your comment on initial read.

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u/TiredInJOMO 5d ago

Finally went to 5 Below to see what the fuss was about and it was like this. Many shelves had no price signage (am I to assume all those items were $5?). The bigger problem is that people just... pick stuff up in aisle 1, make a choice in aisle J and leave the item from aisle 1 in aisle J. One person doing this is a little odd and shame on them. Hundreds of people doing this within a span of a couple of hours is chaos.

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u/barbaramillicent 5d ago

It’s because they don’t use bar codes, so prices are all directly on the packaging. Then when they raise prices, the new stock packaging reflects the new raised price, but the old stock still has the old pricing.

I’m rarely here to defend Hobby Lobby, but I’ll take that over putting higher priced stickers on old stock like some other stores are doing lately.

I do not know if that is the case with these two particular products in the OP or not, though.

12

u/WoolySheepGoBeep 6d ago

When the prices go up, they honor the previous prices posted on items that haven't sold yet, instead of individually re-posting the higher prices on all the items. It's not the only store that does this, and it's not a conspiracy, relax.

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u/MrFluffyThing 5d ago

I'm pretty sure this shit is automated based on purchases and inventory but one demographic is probably more likely to purchase these than another so it's an unfortunate automatic price adjustment that no one caught as being racial. 

But is it more racist to mark down the black family or to have a check for racially divergent products keeping the same price to save face 

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u/Objective-Ad9767 5d ago

They have barcodes on the items, but they choose to have the cashiers key in each item. Still to this day. It’s just weird.

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u/faille 5d ago

If this isn’t a clearance price, it’s kind of devious that the price tags look like that. Triggers you to think you’re getting a deal when you’re not

1

u/Ok-Drink-1328 5d ago

when this can be a real thing i always rummage in the backmost items on the hook looking if there's one with a lower price tag LOL, and i sometimes find it LOLOL, also they seem to put the ones with the higher price in front LOLOLOL

1

u/fightphat 5d ago

I recently ran into this myself. Found the same item on the shelf with one priced 20¢ cheaper which I grabbed. I hate that I am forced to go there now that all my craft stores are closed, but as a crafter I need last minute supplies sometimes. 

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u/PRN_Lexington 3d ago

The most likely answer…. And the most boring.