Whenever I organize my e-mails for an occasional column on reader
feedback, I am amazed at the deluge on any subject involving customer service.
Here's how your comments on shopping have stacked up in the past few
months.
(snip)
� Who's minding the store? Another big irritant to shoppers is
problems in store operations that seem to crop up over and over and never get
fixed.
Falling clearly into that category are the discrepancies shoppers find
in unit pricing at supermarkets, when two brands of the same product display
unit prices in different measures, such as price per ounce vs. price per pound.
It makes it hard to figure out what product offers the best deal.
"I can't believe that after all the years of unit pricing, store chains
have not implemented uniform standards," wrote an annoyed shopper.
"I cannot believe this is not intentional," wrote another.
Shoppers have an eagle eye for inconsistency, especially when it comes
to price. But what really struck me in so many comments was the degree to which
readers refused to give stores the benefit of the doubt. They are bitter and
assume they're being "taken."
Any story on unit pricing is also going to invite the
inevitable flood of tirades about how stupid our measuring system is compared
with the simplicity of metric measurements. A reader from London explained that
unit pricing problems are nonexistent in Britain. "Everything here is metric, so
it's way easier to compare value. Time for a change?"
