The Big Scan

So Trading Standards visited our store last week. And they did what they always do, get a trolley and go round the store, filling it up, and then take it to the tills. And then they compared the prices they noted on the shelf edges, to what they paid... and they found one error. Just one price that was higher at the till than advertised on the shelf edge. Now if this was any other customer they would go to the Customer Service Desk, point this out and we'd issue a refund for the difference and a sincere apology to them. The Admin dept would be notified and we would speedily print out a new ticket with the correct price, and get it onto the shelf edge. No harm, no foul, no hassle.

Only this wasn't any customer, this was Trading Standards, and so they made a report about us. And that report landed on the desk of our stores regional director. And he decided that our store had "issues", and so ordered an audit. So what this means is that someone from another store is going to come to ours, and try to catch us out in the same way Trading Standards did. We know they are coming, we have a few days warning of this. And we know who is coming, because she used to work in our store, so she is going to be well motivated to claim our scalp if she can do so.

So for the past few days we have been scanning every item in the store, and comparing the price on the shelf edge, to that on the computer system. That's EVERY item in the store... all 30,000 of them!! All because of 1 price error! To say this is a tedious process is a gross understatement, it has taken pretty much the whole Admin dept (minus one person manning the office itself), the past 3 days to do this, and there is still work to do tomorrow to finish the great task. Still it will be worth it if we have managed to stymie our auditor finding anything wrong.