Hi OzBargainers, earlier this month, my wife was doing our monthly grocery shopping at Woolworths, while I watched our 3-year-old daughter at the mall. It was a warm day, and my daughter asked for ice cream. So, I went to Coles in the same mall and bought a 4-pack of Peter's drumsticks, enjoying 2 cones myself.
I then received a call from my wife asking me to come to Woolworths to help with the scanning. When I arrived, I realized she had forgotten to pick up my Up&Go drink. I left the half-eaten box of drumsticks in the trolley and grabbed my flavoured milk from the store.
Later that day, after we got home, I found out that my wife had scanned the ice cream box at Woolworths as well. The price at Coles was $4.50, while Woolworths charged $9.50. I decided I would return to the store on my next trip to rectify this.
Today, I spoke with the in-store manager and explained our mistake. She informed me that they couldn’t issue a refund because Coles and Woolworths sell many similar products, and she could have assisted me if I had contacted them on the same day. I was curious, though—since Woolworths is a large retailer, shouldn’t their inventory be recorded via the barcodes of product batches? Wouldn't this allow them to distinguish their products from those sold by other retailers?
Barcodes are generic and aren’t batch specific like that, atleast not for products sold at the supermarket.
Also, this was just an unfortunate situation where you could have been more careful yourself. Anyways, stuff happens.