You Overestimate Their Ability To Estimate

A customer is checking out using food stamps.

Me: “Your total is $546.18.”

Customer: “Oh, we only have like… $200 on that card.”

Me: “Oh… well… would you like to take some items off, or pay for those with another form of payment?”

Customer: “I only have the card.”

They remove a single loaf of bread.

Customer: “How much is it now?”

We’re incredibly busy, and the customers in line behind them immediately realize this is not going to be a quick ordeal. They all immediately vacate for other lines, but this creates new issues as new customers join the line thinking they’ve scored a jackpot by finding the checkout with almost no line, only to realize pretty quickly why there was no line to begin with.

Customer: *After removing maybe three more items* “How much is it now?”

Me: “I’m going to be honest; you’re going to need to remove over half of this stuff before it comes close to $200.”

Customer: “But we don’t pay sales tax. Did you take that off?”

Me: “I did, and your total is still over $500.”

Customer: “Oh… Let me think.”

I encouraged them to stand aside to decide what they wanted to keep, but of course, they did not, and my manager passing by temporarily closed my lane so that this customer could dither for half an hour going through their items one by one. During a bust rush!

Look. I get not having enough money for what you have in the cart. It has happened to many of us, including me. However, if you know how much you have in stamps, and know you don’t pay any sales tax on your purchase, why not just add up what you put in the cart as you go?

Why are you coming to the register with $500 worth of food and only just under $200 on your card with no extra ways to pay for the rest of it? I guarantee you have SOMETHING that can act as a calculator, or the kids you dragged in have something. USE IT, PLEASE!