Convince me: Why I should shop at Food Lion?

[sostinkinhappy]

I am new to the area and have been to my local Food Lion a total of 4 times. The last two times were...well, nothing short of wretched. Like the kind of experience that makes you want to call corporate and unload on whoever is on the other end of the line.

Without boring you with the details, tonight I had an order that consisted of 5 items. I had 5 coupons, one of which was the $2 OYNO Glade Catalina from the gel warmers. Every coupon matched up with the product and I didn't have more coupons than the number of products, except for the OYNO order catalina which from my understanding can be used to bring down the OOP total. Both times, the cashier told me that I CANNOT save that much money and that I can only use 2 coupons per transaction, as in 2 TOTAL, not 2 of the same kind. Just 2 coupons and I had to chose which ones. ?????

Both of these cashiers made a huge scene over it, and I politely held my ground and asked for the manager. They called over the front end manager (who happened to be the same person both times). I told her tonight, "Oh, we had this problem last Saturday and remember how Carol said that I am doing this the right way and there isn't any problem with the transaction at all?" She said she remembered me but told me that I couldn't use more than 2 coupons TOTAL on the order. Period. End of story. She started throwing all kinds of attitude at me & loudly proclaiming that I was trying to rip off Food Lion. At this point, I CALMLY (as I could) asked her to have the store manager come to the front so we could sort through this.

Richard comes to the front and tells her the exact same thing that Carol told her not more than 48 hours before: I am doing EVERYTHING correctly, I am not defrauding Food Lion or the manufacturers and that my order should be rung through with no problem. Bless his heart though, he tried to tell me that my entire transaction was one purchase and that's why the front end manager was telling me I could only use 2 coupons. (WTF?) As we all understand (who are familiar with coupons), a purchase is ONE of the items in a transaction.

Seriously, is it always this bad? There are two other grocery stores closer to me and I think I will just save my time & effort and spend my $$ there. To be treated like this TWICE within a couple of days was absolutely ridiculous, especially as I was not doing ANYTHING wrong or even remotely underhanded. I just wanted to use my stupid FLIP, one $2 OYNO catalina and 3 manufacturer coupons. That's all.

Last Saturday, I was really, REALLY nice because I didn't want to use up any coupon karma. Tonight though...I lost my cool for about a minute when she started announcing to everyone around me that I was defrauding Food Lion for trying to "double up" on coupons.

*sigh* Tell me this gets better.

[nmeadows0101]

I can't really except sometimes I find a really good deal there.
For me it is also the closest store without having to drive 20-30 minutes to lowes food, HT, Bi-lo's, BLoom.
For me the closest grocery is foodlion like 10 mins or less.
I find better deals at others sometimes but I can't always do the drive or have the time just for one trip.
sorry that it is not much help, I am sure some foodlions are better than others.

[Tammylane]

If there is another FL store near you, I would try that one. Around here we have a FL on every corner is seems. I've never had problems at any of them, thankfully. I honestly don't use FL for much. If not for the FLIPs I probably wouldn't go in at all. They don't double q's and usually their sales are not great. Okay, I'm starting to talk myself out of FL. Seriously, if I were having these kinds of problems with one store and couldn't get it resolved with maybe a regional manager or something, I probably wouldn't use the store any more. I would also contact corporate to let them know about the problems.

[my3girlz]

Well I won't be much help...lol. FL is the closest grocery store to me, so it's my usualy go-to. I love their BOGO sales and having them ring up at half price.

I often find good deals at other stores, but it'snot always worth the drive for me. I'm sorry you're having such a tough time w/them....but lots of other stores are like that too. They seem to all make up their own rules at any given time.

[uummm]

GENERALLY SPEAKING!

I ONLY go to Food Lion for the flip/free items, and half the time I don't even bother. I can get much better deals at the store across the street on a regular basis and their employees seem to have a clue about what customer service is.

I have been to ONE Food Lion that was really nice, it must have been new. I find in General Food Lion is lacking in customer service and even the employees seem to be ones that other grocery stores won't hire. There is something to be said for good customer service. Even when I lived in Florida where my choices were Publix, Albertsons and Food Lion, I rarely went to Food Lion, as a matter of fact I would travel 10 miles past the Food Lion to shop at Publix. There is a reason FL has the money problems they do.

I go to Food Lion and it is a totally different class of people that shop there and work there, and everything about the store reflects that.

I do agree some FL may be better than others. I was at one the other day it was really nice, but I think it was new. Give it some time, it will get just as crappy as the others.

[juliebug72]

Why should you shop at FL? I can't think of a single reason myself! I also have endured three dramatic scenes in the past five days at three different FLs! I will spare you all the gory details but I was doing nothing wrong. They just thought I shouldn't be getting such a great deal. It all depends on which FL you go to. My friend goes to the same one each time and they are wonderful to her. They don't judge her for being a consumer getting a good deal! They applaud her for it! Too bad my FL's have been the complete opposite. I will not shop FL again! Horrible attitudes and store managers who don't even know their own company's policy! You know who you are dealing with when you know more about their coupon policy than the store manager!

[oscamaya]

Not all Food Lions are like that. It might be beneficial to call corporate and let them know what is going on, if you want. It might straighten them out.

There are 5 Food Lions within a 3 mile radius of me house. It is the easiest store for me to shop at so that is where I make the deals work. The deals have to be really really good for me to spend the gas to go to Lowes or HT.

Sometimes the FLIPs are really great and that is what really makes it worth it at FL. Take a break from them this week (unless we get good FLIPs) and try again next week.

[oscamaya]

Why should you shop at FL? I can't think of a single reason myself! I also have endured three dramatic scenes in the past five days at three different FLs! I will spare you all the gory details but I was doing nothing wrong. They just thought I shouldn't be getting such a great deal. It all depends on which FL you go to. My friend goes to the same one each time and they are wonderful to her. They don't judge her for being a consumer getting a good deal! They applaud her for it! Too bad my FL's have been the complete opposite. I will not shop FL again! Horrible attitudes and store managers who don't even know their own company's policy! You know who you are dealing with when you know more about their coupon policy than the store manager!

Hi! and welcome to HCW! I am sorry that your FL was horrible to you. I am like your friend and go to the same store every time. They know me there and are wonderful to me (most of the time). It really helps if you build up a rapport with the store employees.

Also, we have several FL employees on the thread and they have stated that they received NO training in regards to coupons. So it is not the employees' fault that they have to make up rules as they go along.

[ibnuts]

GENERALLY SPEAKING!

I ONLY go to Food Lion for the flip/free items, and half the time I don't even bother. I can get much better deals at the store across the street on a regular basis and their employees seem to have a clue about what customer service is.

I have been to ONE Food Lion that was really nice, it must have been new. I find in General Food Lion is lacking in customer service and even the employees seem to be ones that other grocery stores won't hire. There is something to be said for good customer service. Even when I lived in Florida where my choices were Publix, Albertsons and Food Lion, I rarely went to Food Lion, as a matter of fact I would travel 10 miles past the Food Lion to shop at Publix. There is a reason FL has the money problems they do.

I go to Food Lion and it is a totally different class of people that shop there and work there, and everything about the store reflects that.

I do agree some FL may be better than others. I was at one the other day it was really nice, but I think it was new. Give it some time, it will get just as crappy as the others.

I agree about their customer service. When I lived in Florida years ago, Food Lion wasn't quite so bad. In NC, however, every one I've been to has been awful. The last time I went, I couldn't find any razors and so checked out and went to get a rain check. Despite telling the CSR that I was in a hurry to get to a meeting, she told me she "couldn't" write me a rain check until she checked if there was stock in the back first. Apparently there was, but she had to send someone to go get it. I told her I needed 1 pack of the razors and 3 refill packs. She had the guy bring me 3 razors and then go back and bring me 3 more razors (in two trips!); apparently they were too lazy to get a cart, and too thick to understand it would be less work to get the cart in the first place).

After all the other poor customer service experiences I've had with them, despite the fact that they're the closest store to me, I prefer to shop at HT. I also usually get far better deals there. But now that I've been able to afford shopping at HT, I would shop there even without coupons, and would just have to eat less.

One advantage of the stupidity of most employees (and even managers) at FL is that they once gave me a rain check for SteamFresh that didn't have a quantity or size on it, so I ordered coupons on eBay and cleaned them out of 120+ bags (for $60). If it were HT, I never would have done it, because they treat me so well. But with FL I took a sick kind of pleasure in it.

In stark contrast to FL, a couple of times I've gone to CS at HT because the check out person didn't scan a coupon or because I was charged extra, and I realized I was receiving too much back. In both cases, I told the CSR, but they said because it was their mistake, that they were refunding me the entire price of the item! Both times, I've insisted that they not do that, but they wouldn't take "no" for an answer. I've only had one bad experience at HT and when I called the DM (district manager) he agreed that the store asst manager I had spoken to was mistaken and offered to set up a meeting between all of us so that he could apologize and they could rectify the mistake. When I called FL about the above problem, they never even responded.

[lwestcott]

There are 2 FLs within 10 miles of me. Never ever had an issue with customer service. I've gotten to know their coupon policies and what FLIPs help me out. In all honesty I'm not looking to have no or little OOP expense, I'm just looking to cut back on my grocery bill. FLIPs help me tremendously to do that. I regularly save $10-20 on my grocery bill every week. And that's helped me stay in my $50 to $75 budget for groceries per week AND my cabinets stay pretty stocked.

I don't have time to go to 4 or 5 different stores hunting for the bargains. FL is overall cheaper than the other close stores which are Giant, Superfresh, Safeway and Weis. And I like their generic products. Though I do watch the Weis sales because they double coupons and I'll buy paper and cleaning products there. And they sometimes have really good deals on meat. But otherwise Weis is more expensive.