********* Marketing

I know Woolworths doesn't bother to respond to complaints on Hello Peter but i feel i need to share with others that have had similar experiences.

Dear Woolworths, I have always been a fan of clothes shopping and grocery shopping at your stores. On Sunday 15th April 2018, i had the worst experience at your Cavendish Cape Town store. I went to go buy underwear and sleeping shorts. After looking 30 minutes for my size unsuccessfully someone eventually took pity on me and offered to help, the store was not busy at the time and i could see they were just standing around trying to look invisible. They could not find my size either xxl. the staff member then proceeded to tell me that they only get a few items in that size and they go quickly. While that does annoy me as you would think Woolworths is able to use their past selling figures and statistics to realize that having minimal stock of a size is a problem for the bigger people like me...unless Woolworths is trying to tell me to lose weight?

Eventually i gave up on the idea of getting underwear and went to buy some sleeping shorts instead. I found ones i liked and on the packaging it was saying 2 For R150. I was very happy about that and decided to take a few pairs.

I then when into the food section and put into my trolley a few hundred Rands worth of groceries. The cashier rang up everything and i noticed that the prices for the sleeping shorts were different. There was no discount for taking 2 pairs, i was charged full price. I showed the cashier that it says 2 for R150. She then proceeds to tell me that it is only if i have a rewards card that i get the discount. I looked at the packaging, i looked at the labels, i looked at the sticker that says 2 for R150 and nowhere did it say that you have to be a rewards member to get the discount. I pointed this out to the cashier and she tells me that there is a sign by the clothes that says so. I told i saw no sign in my 45 minutes of trying to find underwear and sleeping shorts. She then goes off to the clothing section and comes back with a sign that i never saw and has it in very small writing that it is for reward members only. It is not clear signage on the packaging, it is not displayed where i could see it, I was not informed by the person helping me in the selection of my sleeping shorts and underwear.

I asked to speak to a manager, when someone arrived, i have to assume he was the manager, he had no form of identification on him at all, no name badge, and when i introduced myself he said he was the manager, no i am Bob the manager or i am John the manager, just the manager.

I explained to him the problem and the first thing he tells me is that lots of customers have complained about the signage and misleading packaging. I told him that it was not acceptable to market like this as it is ********* to make signage obscure enough that most people don't realize there is a catch until they get to the counter and then just pay the inflated price as its to much effort to do anything else.

The manager then condescendingly tells me if i want the discount i have to sign up for a rewards card. I informed him i don't do reward cards. He then tells me that i will have to pay full price for the clothing. I then told him he can take the underwear the hundreds of Rands of groceries and get lost.

I walked out of the store and will not go back, i will not spend another cent in a Woolworth store. Woolworths is running a shocking marketing campaign in hopes of catching people out and increasing revenue. The fact that the manager decided it was better to lose me as a customer then to try and sort out the issue there and then.

Woolwoths...I have reached the limit of my patients with you, no stock and then trying to cheat me at the till. H&M will now become my clothes supplier and groceries will become checkers and Pick and Pay. Its a shame that after all these years of shopping at Woolworths They decided my business wasn't worth it any more.