Rite Aid Order Online, Pick Up In Store discussion

[MrVietnam]

The way the online order works is when an online order comes in to Rite Aid they get an alert on the handheld scanners and also an alert on the cash registers that they have an order to prepare. They prepare using the handheld scanner. Once that is done they go to a register do something on the handheld that interacts with the register and gets a packing slip to print from the register. The packing slip is then to be placed with the order until it is picked up.

When you show up to pick up order the packing slip is scanned at the start of a transaction like any other transaction then the register recalls the order and it processes through the register. If you have bonus cash on your card the pinpad will ask if you want to use bonus cash yes/no and if you are doing a pick up you have to pick no otherwise it will screw everything up. So once you hit no to bonus cash, the employee can select online tender or a pay in store tender. The pay in store tender may revert the entire transaction up to store prices (maybe they fixed this) so do not suggest that.

I have also had instances where the website screws up, for example, the website does not collect sales tax, or the website does not correctly transmit a promo code to the store. So in this case the website collects your payment but it does not charge you enough and leaves you a small balance to pay the store. In this case after the system processes “online tender” it seems to not mess anything up to pay the store a few cents of cash or credit card.

So a few things to note:

1. Do not try to use bonus cash when you pick up in store
2. Load 2 Card does not work on pick up in store
3. For Bonus Cash accumulations, if you do pick up in store, you only get credit for exactly what you paid. Promo codes will discount items on a line item basis. So if you buy $20 item on website and use 50% off code, you will only get $10 tracking toward Bonus Cash deal
4. Bonus Cash is not given until you pick order up in store. Bonus Cash will be given based on whatever offers are active at the time you pick the order up. So if you place an order today, then do not pick it up until Sunday, if your order had Bonus Cash deals from this week, you won’t be getting those deals. But pricing is locked in on the order to pricing on the day you placed it so whatever today’s price is, that is the price you will pay at pick up even if you pick up Sunday after ad change.
5. Catalina offers will print if applicable on the pick up orders
6. No way to redeem paper coupons on pick up orders from what I can tell, try it, may revert transaction all to store prices
7. If something is done that reverts the pick up transaction to store prices they can void it rather than finalize online tender, then re-scan the pick slip and recall it on the register again and process it properly (no to bonus cash and press online tender)
   After all this someone may ask why use their in store pick up. The main draw I see is that it has lower prices than in the store.
8. In some states there is regulated bag fee, regulated bottle deposit, etc. In those states Rite Aid seems to add a “bag fee” and “recycling fee” to every transaction even if you do not buy any items that apply to a bag fee or a bottle deposit. In this case what will happen is when they recall the order in the store those fees will be automatically attached by the cash register if you actually buy items that attach those fees (or may not be… just like the website doesn’t always charge sales tax when it is supposed to . . . . . . ) so in those cases your credit card will be authorized for a higher amount than you will actually be charged (you will be charged what the receipt in the store says).

I have been told by a knowledgeable employee that in the first few days of online pick up, Bonus Cash was able to be processed on pick up orders. I never got to see this work. However when I called corporate customer service the person there said they had used it themself during the testing phase. It is a bit of a mystery why it broke and no longer works. This is a very low volume store, probably only has a few pick up orders in a week.

This post was copy and pasted verbatim from what storewanderer wrote on ihra in this week’s weekly thread. Credit and thanks to storewanderer/ihra

[MrVietnam]

I noticed on a recent pick up order I got the item ordered tax free when it should have been charged tax. For me that is a 9.25% additional discount.

I think pick up orders do have their place and their benefits. They are usually priced at well under what the in store prices are, so you can save money by placing online first and picking up in store and you don’t have to wait a week for delivery and accumulate at least $35 to get free shipping as you do on a regular online order. You can also get cash back tracking at various cash back sites. Topcashback has had the best rates recently.The only two major downsides to pick up orders that I can ascertain are 1) you cannot (yet, anyway) pay with Bonus Cash and 2) if you are wanting tracking for a BC or BCC offer it will only track for what you actually paid, which is not the case when placing a regular online order.