Laundry detergent no-go at Meijer — Babies R Us not considered competitor
Posted at 11:57 am by rachel in meijer
Laura shares a response she received from Meijer corporate, and Don was also told the same thing. Apparently they do not consider Babies R Us a “competitor,” so will be instructing stores not to accept the BRU/TRU laundry detergent coupon. This is disappointing, but at least now we know so that it is not hit or miss depending on store/cashier. Here’s the statement Laura received:
Laura,
I wanted to close the loop on the Babies R Us coupon you brought to our attention. Late last night we communicated directly with our stores in regards to clarifying our coupon policy….stated here below for reference. The policy can be found online, and is where we direct customers in order to ensure that we are communicating consistently with all customers, across all stores. As we spoke on the phone, we are instructing our stores to not accept the Babies R Us coupon. This is consistent with the conversation you and I in which I stated that Meijer classifies Babies R Us as a specialty retailer and not a major competitor. So, first issue, we’ve clarified the immediate issue and concern with our stores, so that we are consistent.
However, as you pointed out, there remains ambiguity in how we define “major competitors” and in how customers interpret “major competitors.” This is an issue, we are continuing to work on in the few weeks and will look to publish an updated Coupon Policy immediately thereafter. Please rest assured, that we will take full consideration of the questions you raised including potentially naming those competitors.
Again, thank you for your feedback.
Sincerely,
Marisa Thompson
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Meijer does sell toys and electronics which toys r us also sells.. And they are not competitors?
They have been accepting mine!
Hey at least they were nice enough to write back to you. It is the worst when people with no authority try to belittle you for using a coupon. I’m glad they respect us enough to give us a formal statement from corporate.
Bunny, I agree whole heatedly, they gave me over an hour of their time listening to me and really focusing on what the community of coupon folks are trying to say. It appears that for the time being it is up to each individual store director to determine what is and what is not a competitor and what “area” is their competitor. We discussed that there has got to be transparency and consistency along all stores on up to corporate and from what you can see by the statement Laura worked so diligently to gather from their higher management, they are taking this serious and working on this issue. As I told them, we must be able to know if we take a coupon to a store whether it will be accepted or not, we need it spelled out so we dont go to the store, waste time and money, for the store to not accept it. I went on to discuss with them that there is also confusion in regards to some stores accepting stacking and some not….. we shall see what transpires. I do not think they liked me comparing their coupon confusion to Targets, which is the true parellel from everything I have seen…..
Oh well the coupon is still good at R’us. Everyone knows Target, Walmart, Kmart, Menards, Jewel and Dominicks would not take the R’us coupon.
I anticipate that Meijer in the future may consider laundry and baby products as general merchandise and not grocery which general merchandise requires the competitors ad with a defined product, price point to match, and coupon value.
Algonquin Meijer had TGI Friday’s appetizers $3.00. Had a Target coupon for $2.00 off 3 and 2 manufactuer coupons for $1.00 each. Making the after coupon total $5.00 for 3 boxes. Cashier would not except both types of coupons, said I didn’t buy enough. Didn’t make sense to me. I argued that their policy says one competitor coupon and 1 Manufactuer coupon per item. Said their computer won’t take both types of coupons. I tried to get them to override the computer but they would not budge. just a heads up if anyone is using the coupons that expire today.