Sears Observation

[ebbets55]

Just got this Williams box and thought it was cool that the price tag contained the model number. I have never seen that. Has anyone else?

JD

[Mr. Mitt]

Pretty neat... never saw that before. Definitely advanced, but then again, Sears was likely on the cutting edge of inventory control in those days.

[candlestick]

I think it is more theft prevention. Years ago, before UBC codes the only way you knew how much something cost was the little price sticker. Oh, Sears probably had the price up on the shelf too but that sticker was your guarantee of how much you were going to be charged by the cashier. That said, if you were an unscrupulous person you might peel this sticker off and replace it with another from a cheaper glove or anything else in the store for that matter. Most likely the cashier would not notice the difference and you would get the glove at a discount.

Two advances helped thwart would be thieves. First, later versions of the price sticker had super sticky backs and perforations throughout the sticker so that one could not pull them off without damaging the packaging, a dead giveaway to the cashier. Second, the option for a smaller row of letters or numbers was added so that additional information could be included on the price sticker. The cashier was supposed to check at the point of sale to make sure the numbers on the sticker matched the model # on the box.

Of course back in the day Sears also had another method. All of their cashiers were also sales associates and stock handlers in a permanently assigned area. As a cashier you lived worked and breathed Sporting Goods, each day, every day. Pretty soon you knew the price of everything in your area. Nowadays things are different, there are fewer sales associates on the floor and each employee has a specific task, stock, cashier. But I digress...........

[Mr. Mitt]

Ah yes... the old "four finger discount" (to quote our favorite show, the Simpsons)!!!