Croma Trauma

Tata’s electronics retail store, Croma is nice place to spend time in Eva Mall, Brigade Road. A few months back, we purchased a electric kettle to help boil/heat water for Aashira, without the hassles of a vessel-on-gas-stove-&-keep-watch. It was Croma’s own brand, I forgot the name. These in-house brands may not have the appeal of Sony or Phillips but they are a good deal with a decent guarantee (the retailer will not want to screw his name with a bad product). Being in-house, Croma was “aggressively” pushing them with a price display that shouted Rs 999 in font 72.

Picked-Billed-Paid-Returned home. Those days we had just learnt to be out with Aashira but not for too long. So, returned home asap. That night I checked – The kettle was fine but the bill wasn’t! It was billed Rs 1199! How can bloody organised retail backed with technology, process, Tata charge me Rs 200 more??? I swore to confront them & kept the bill safe.

I managed to get back to the same branch of Croma and gave the flashback to the guy at the billing counter. He promptly turned his monitor and showed me his pricing software. It clearly said that the day I purchased the price was indeed Rs 1299. It was 999 a few days before my purchase date. Nevertheless, the fact remained that the price display read 999 but what did I have to prove. Security camera records! I wasn’t so tough as it turned out later. I simply had to check the price display again! It read 1299 (in font 72)  while the billing system read 999! Their stood the proof! The guys simply messed up the merchandising process. While the IT team had implemented a new technology (read expensive) software that connected all stores allowing the company to adopt modern retail pricing strategies (one such is psychological pricing that leads to the fight for Re 1), the guys on the ground simply forgot to change the price display effectively negating all the benefits that are expected to be derived by technology, process & smart minds back in the corporate office. This was the trauma @ Croma.

Yes, I managed to get the 200 bucks back :)