Dollarama: The Problem of Policy Consistency Between Locations

It was a dollar store. That’s right a dollar.  This whole post is over $1.

My kids were buying stocking stuffers and decided to add a jar of jam for their grandmother.   I told the clerk to put the breakables in one bag — there were also some drinking glasses — and to make sure everything was wrapped in tissue that was made of glass.

It turned out she didn’t.   My younger son went to lay one of the bags on the floor while I paid, with a bit more velocity than he should have, and the jam jar broke.   The rest of the things in that bag were unbreakable and he never expected the jam jars were in there because I had told the woman to put the breakables in one bag.

It turned out that in this store items are bagged according to tax rate. Food items, taxed differently are all put in one bag.    Breakable and unbreakable.   A policy from which they do not waver.  And they don’t wrap food items, even if kids are helping carry the bags.   As for the broken jam jar, they said if we wanted another one we would have to buy it, and before I could stop him, my oldest son ran and got another and handed over some money he had in his pocket.

An ugly store with some pretty ugly policies.   But again, it was only $1.

But I couldn’t get that ugly experience out of my mind, and a few weeks later, while having to make an emergency purchase at another store from the same chain, I was told that (a) there is no policy on sorting items for bagging; breakables should all be wrapped in tissue paper and put in the same bag, and (b) if a customer, even out of their own negligence, drops a package and something breaks, they will replace it, whether it happens in the store, the mall itself, or the parking lot.   What a refreshing difference.

That astounded me.   Same chain.   Two entirely different policies.   Two entirely different approaches to customer services.   Since this store was only about 16km (8 miles) away from the other, I asked for the phone number of an area or district manager.   He never once returned the calls.

The thing is, I was a very regular customer of the local Dollarama store.  They lost me.  It’s been four years, and I still have the receipt for the replacement jar in my wallet as a reminder to never go back.    But worse, I think they ripped off my older son.   And nobody takes advantage of my kids and gets away with it.

So I tell this story to everyone I can.    Because that’s what angry customers do.

And stores like Dollarama will never catch on to that.

If you’re from Dollarama and you’re reading this, you owe my oldest son a dollar.