this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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Off My Chest

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I think it’s so obnoxious when I go into a little shop and nothing has a price tag. I hate it with the white hot passion of a thousand suns. Are you seriously gonna make me ask you about the price of every little thing I might consider purchasing? Or would you prefer that I bring a bunch of stuff to the register and then decide if I actually want it as you ring it up? And it honestly doesn’t matter if I can afford it (although the lack of clearly labeled prices are particularly rude to people who maybe can’t). No matter how much money I have I will never feel good about getting ripped off so the asking price will always be a factor.

I was recently in a local needlepoint supply store where they had nothing labeled. Needlepoint supplies vary wildly in price. You can get thread for a dollar or for $20. Canvases can cost 5 bucks or hundreds. From their website I saw that this store had needle minders (little decorative magnets to hold your needle when you take a break, they usually look like enamel pins but with magnets instead of the pin and clasp). Well they had $7 needle minders and $75 needle minders. So someone will wander in and see a cute 1 inch Snoopy magnet, think it’s a cute impulse purchase and then get hit with $75 + tax and have to either smile and go along with it or have to back out. It’s just a piss poor customer experience.

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[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I've worked very high-end retail, and the only reason a customer would ever have to ask the price is if they were too vain to wear glasses so they could read the labels. Having done labeling, I can see that it would take a lot of time to hang tags on individual skeins of thread, but surely at least the peg they hang from could have a label. How does the person at the register know the prices, do they have everything memorized? Or is there a code label already on the item? If so is there a way you or your phone could decode that? Or could they hand you a scanner to use? Seems like they ought to be able to explain it, or demonstrate that they aren't just making up the prices based on the shopper's appearance. Most vendors even print the MSRP, so that shop might be removing them and upcharging.

What a stupid way to turn what could be a pleasant artistic introspective shopping experience into a stressful one. And I'm sure it cuts their sales because not only would I (politely) have them take back the $75 magnet before I paid, but also on any further visits I would stop myself from even touching anything other than the list I came in for, and they'd miss selling items which I might have impulse-purchased if I'd seen they were priced within reason.

[–] xtr0n@sh.itjust.works 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

How does the person at the register know the prices?

That’s the funny part. They don’t.

When I asked about the price of the thread, she had to look it up on the ipad. There were like 3 main brands and for one of them it took a decent amount of time, like 2-3 minutes to hunt it down. It’s kinda wild because it’s a tiny store with only 2 walls for display or shelves and the thread takes up one entire wall.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Oh that's hilarious actually! So they're just really really bad at running a store. They're wasting more effort and time than it would take to label every item, starting from scratch. God forbid they would ever have to deal with multiple customers asking prices. You and a few friends could come in separately but all around the same time and just ask for price after price... Did they have any rationale for why they don't show their prices?

[–] xtr0n@sh.itjust.works 1 points 40 minutes ago

I didn’t ask why so IDK their rationale. I suspect that they are just inconsiderate.