Woolworths meat and pricing

And so it may be, but given that you pay immediately instead of at packing time… don’t see how else it can be done. If you follow a budget, you don’t get caught short

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Is it a pre-authorisation or a deduction? If it is a pre-authorisation it will appear as a pending transaction in a credit card account but won’t accrue interest, but will affect available balance associated with the credit cards credit limit.

If it is a transaction, these will incur interest and available balance associated with the credit cards credit limit.

The Woolworths online T&C’s indicates it is a pre-authorisation in some cases…

Where pre-authorisation is used, there won’t be any interest accruing on the checkout amount. Interest will potentially start accruing when the payment is finalised on packing. So in these cases they don’t have your money for 24 hours, just have the ability to ensure payment on packing can be charged to the card through the pre-authorisation.

At other times they charge a transaction to the credit card at checkout.

I haven’t read all the T&C’s to see when they charge or pre-authorise amounts at checkout. I wonder if they pre-authorise where ordered groceries are known to have significantly different price between checkout and packing, such as orders with a large number of weighed produce…where discrepancies would be greater…or maybe it could be a time based decision. Maybe those which are ordered and packed at around the same time are charged, while those with a larger lag are pre-authorised… don’t know.

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Let me see if I have this right.

  • If you order something online whose price is not known at that time you are charged the maximum that the item could be so the transaction can be settled then.
  • When the item is picked the actual price is known.
  • If the actual price is less than the maximum you are credited with the difference.
  • The customer is disadvantaged because the vendor is holding some their money for a while.

Using the example of the racks of lamb one way to prevent the issue from arising is for every rack in every store to be entered into the system as a separate item with its own price and identifier so that the rack selected at order time was the one picked and dispatched to the customer. This adds extra work, complicates the system and allows for all kinds of errors to happen along the way.

The flow on effects if the wrong one is picked or an item becomes unavailable (eg the package breaks and the rack falls on the floor or is lost) become quite nasty. I would not class that solution as better programming but a substantial system augmentation. Taking into account human and system costs building and running this feature would not be cheap, I can see why it was avoided.

What is the solution that avoids this problem using non lazy programming?

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Sorry. Overcharge is wrong context.
I like to know ,as a certainty , how much I spend. If Woolworths charges me for 2kg of chicken. Supply me with 1.25kg .i get a refund for .75kg. Nice. I did not know it was going to be 1.25kg or 1.5kg or 1.6kg.
Who knows what charge I am going to get for my chicken . How can I then , know what I am doing with my budget ?

All dependent on whether it is an authorisation, or a processed charge/transaction. If it is only an authorisation there should not be any worries; if it is a processed charge/transaction, then

Coles apparently only puts through the charge when it is packed, not when it is ordered, as one example already cited by others.

Overcharge is wrong context. Sorry.
At Coles, a pack of chops $10 only. I know exactly what I have spent in that moment when I checkout.
At Woolworths, I know I have spent the maximum for a pack of lamb chops.
No certainty as what I am spending in that moment. Even if I get a refund.

So the customer doesn’t know what they are up for when they order and the transaction may fail at some later time when the customer is no longer online and doesn’t know about it.

All solutions in the area are compromises. Take your pick.

I believe this is a me problem.
I am agoraphobic, schizophrenic and suffer social anxiety disorder.
I leave my home once a fortnight only. To get medicine and the odd thing from big w.
Need to know how much money I have.

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It is not on the programmers per se, but is on the loss management scheme and priorities. The Woolies method reduces their risk.

Processing or even pre-authorising a transaction on the ambit maximum value is problematic for anyone who uses a debit card on their savings account and lives cheque to cheque. While the customer sees the maximum amount possible on the order, if one is trying to manage their cents, not just dollars, it makes it more difficult.

One does not know the actual amount either way, so I’ll agree it is a ‘call’ which way is best, and the customer is in the dark either way until the final packing/transaction is processed.

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The sizing ranges seem very large. This could perhaps be better listed eg a size 14 Chicken should have a minimum weight of 1.4 kg but be an average of 1.45 kg. A size 20 should be an average of 2.05 kg. But Woolworths list them with up to a 1.2 kg variation from the smallest 1.2 kg (size 12) to a huge 2.4 kg (size 24) and price the cart at the 2.4 kg size. With a family of 1 or 2 a 2.4 kg bird is too much for a meal. You would then need to specify a size you require so as not to get too big or too small a bird.

That seems lazy programming or just lazy listing. I don’t usually see those huge weight variations when shopping for my Chickens they tend to be placed in sized lots.

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Here is a good example.

It would be hard to plan a meal with this sort of variation.

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as I said in my first post to this thread.

REally? You know you are getting two shanks. How hard is that? The weight difference should not be a huge impost, but I don’t think thats what the OP was talking about. It was about the variation in cost.

Honestly, the thread is so full of “what if” … I am bailing out. There’s no possible way you can know for sure. Go shop at Coles if its that much of a hassle. for me, the Woolies way works just fine.

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The cost variation is due to the weight variation which is too wide in my opinion…ie the Chickens vary between getting a 1.2 to a 2.4 kg bird if you order. Would you accept that wide a margin on your order? They need to offer a better choice of sizes/weights.

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Seriously? Another “what if”? (and yes, I would. I do NOT have a problem with paying for 2.4Kg and getting 1.2Kg and a refund, because I know it isnt going to cost me more than the quoted price) But, I dont buy a whole bird, ever.

Seriously yes, I want a bird to suit my meal sizing not one that is either too large or too small. It’s not a what if but what should be. I understand what you are saying about the price but I am talking about how they are sizing their offerings, if I wanted say a 1.6 kg bird I’m not quibbling over a dollar or two if the bird is say 1.61 kg but paying double the cost at the outset is just too large a discrepancy, even if refunded later.

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Thats not what the OP was worried about. I see your point, and I see his. I just don’t see a huge problem.

Out.

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Seriously, I think it’s my problems. WITH my health and timeline.
Working on it

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I think your concern is valid when you pay double, or some significant amount above for what you wanted size wise, at the outset, even if refunded later. They could offer better size/portion choices that you would then be only paying at most a few extra dollars on an order. Why is it so hard to offer better portion control for the orderer? As pensioners our budget is tight and so requires careful spending choices, this randomness of what you order offers poor choices at times and I think it could be easily improved reducing the initial outlay of the customer, a better portion/size selection and reduced in the cost amount of the refunds leaving budgets much more intact.

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Just wanted to know what I spend in the moment

No ifs or buts ,I have spent this much!