No tag? Not for sale, then.
this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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Why are you going there. I turn around and am gone if things are not priced. I mean like a renfair stall with blacksmith I can forgive. Heck its all part of the experience. But like a normal shop. pass. heck if something I intend to buy is not labled at the grocery store I won't buy it. Ill stop somewhere else to pick it up on the way home.
No price tag? That must mean IT'S FREE, RIGHT?
HUAHUAHUAHUA
Having worked in retail, I hate you and everyone like you
Actually, it's priceless.
Go away, Dad
IMO, if there's no price tags, that means haggling is on the table. Me and the cashier are going to have a discussion about how much this doodad should cost.
This is actually how im gonna approach this moving forward. Love it
If the cashier is also the owner, that might even work!
LOL...upvote this...
Ask 30 questions, and walk out without buying anything. The owner will quickly realise the value of those price tags.
I would but I value my time. They’re gonna have to learn from someone else. Next time I need thread, I’ll drive to the suburbs and see if the stores out there are better.
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Fortunately there are pretty strict laws about displaying pricing here because that sounds really annoying.
I've never seen this either. I suppose it's from the US, where, typically, the end-consumer has no real rights anyway in most corners of the country (apart from getting cancer in California).
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.
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.
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?
In some of these stores "if you need to ask you can't afford it", but in your expample that certainly doesn't apply lol.
Kinda the same story with only giving the price before taxes in the US, why would you not just tell your customer up front what they actually need to pay? Making price labels isn't actually hard, you don't need to have them shipped from the national headquarters.
Granted, I've never experienced either. At most, some stores are sloppy and don't label all of their items.
Price before taxes in the US is because a lot of products have the price already printed on them, and are sold in many locations with many different tax codes. I live in Los Angeles where the total is 9.75% but often shop in Santa Monica where it's 10.75% for instance. If I buy a Hallmark card, from a company based in Kansas City Missouri (which apparently has several different rates because of tax overlay zones and counties but it's about 9.95% ish) it will have a price printed on the back which doesn't include any taxes. As a shopper I can still easily compare it to the price of a Papyrus card (owned by American Greetings, based in Westlake OH , total sales tax 8.00%) on the next shelf. I get a ballpark figure adding 10% and rounding. If I buy a soda there will also be a recycling deposit, which also goes to the state not the store. If I buy food, the register knows not to add any tax, unless it's hot and prepared. (Getting fairness for poor people using SNAP to buy a rotisserie chicken is a whole separate discussion!)
The store can program the register once when they need to change the percentages of federal, state, county and city taxes it will add to all the items, or to various categories of items. They won't have to relabel everything in the store if we pass another ½ cent/dollar to fund homeless shelters. The shop owner keeps none of the money and the register calculation makes their payment of those taxes practically automatic.
My wife is exempt from paying GST, so to include it in the pricing would make it incorrect. She would need to pay pst though if applicable.
Things are more nuanced than it seems.
Not everything has pst, gst and/or hst added to its price either. It’s also easier to enter into your taxes when it’s a number on your receipt instead of rolled into a single price.
I’m not tipping food with gst/pst included, so there’s plenty of situations where it being automatically included doesn’t make sense either.
My wife is exempt from paying GST, so to include it in the pricing would make it incorrect. She would need to pay pst though if applicable.
That's not how it works if the store or lawmakers aren't deliberately being idiots about it. It would be easy to treat it like a rebate at the cashier and lower the end price by whatever amount the sales tax is. Just as easy as calculating the sales tax and adding it at the cashier, except now >95% of customers have to do the calculation on their own if they don't want surprises.
Where I come from, tips are always voluntary and above a certain price many tend to tip a flat amount that's independent of the food price.
Removing 5% of $105 isn’t the same as adding 5% to $100.
That’s not how math works.
Tips are voluntary, on the cost of the meal, not the added taxes. I’m not tipping taxes lol. It’s normally a percentage of the cost of a meal, to tip $10 for a $20 is fine, but to tip that same amount on a $200 bill would just be insulting.
And why would taxes be a surprise? You’re taught about them in school since they’re a part of your everyday life. It’s not hard to do some mental math and add percentages, the inverse is orders harder.
Yeah you divide it by 1.05 rather than multiplying it by 1.05
That said, something costing less than the sticker price for a small number of people is better than it costing more for the vast majority of people
Okay, now add in multiple taxes, which one gets removed first so it squares up? You’re ignoring reality to make a simple example. I bought some clothing too, there’s no tax at all on that, so you can’t just remove it from the final sales price. Now it doesn’t square up. Whoops…. Maybe there’s a reason we don’t do that….?
Yes, minorities, they are exempt, natives specifially as well. You want to discriminate against minorities and natives? Just so you don’t need to do some simple mental math…?
Maybe the situation here is different which is why we are different…?
Shocker eh?
People who barely speak the language and you want to try and explain complex taxes and exemptions and why the price is different for them? They’re a foreigner, could even be a refugees. But fuck them…? When you should understand since you were taught? Please make it make sense lol.
All anyone around here hears is how selfish and lazy you want to be when the reason is “simpler for me”. Think of others, especially ones that would have their life’s significantly impacted by a selfish thing like this.
Why do you insist that it's not possible to substract the sales tax at the cashier? You need to substract something like 4.76% instead of adding 5%, but cashiers literally sit in front of a calculating machine that could do this with the press of one button.
I never said it wasn’t possible, but you just described the issue. So now people are thinking the tax is only 4.76% instead of 5? You’re adding layers of confusion. And what amount do I add to my tax reporting so I can recover that amount? You are saying I need to go through every receipt and remove 4.76% and input it, instead of just moving a number from the tax line over. Because the simple thing is to actually add it to the final cost, so it’s not confusing and than the listed price isn’t “false” since taxes are separate from the price of goods.
And removing 4.76 isn’t easy, you said they were the same. Can you acknowledge that’s pure bullshit atleast? You want to make everyone’s life far more difficult, just to avoid some mental math?
How does your taxes work with gst? No way to claim any and recover? How does that work without a listed price on the receipt?
Taxes were only ever supposed to be a temporary war thing, the way you’ve adopted it, makes that no longer the case. And ours has changed a few times over the years, so it’s not just as simple as you think it is.
Yeah, when I shopped for embroidery stuff in Paris everything was clearly labeled with the actual full price because France is a real country with laws. So if a historical embroidery shop in Paris can do it then this neighborhood shop in Seattle can fuck right off.
Which shop? My partner does some embroidery, and it'd be good to know what to avoid.
Heirloom Designs. FWIW they do have nice stuff. But I can’t abide the price tag thing.
ETA the delightful place is Paris is Maison Sajou and they’re over 180 years old. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in Paris.
Shit, I guess they really are Seattle's only needlepoint shop, which must be why they feel they're able to get away with that shit.
I think they’re the only Seattle shop with high end needlepoint fibers and hand painted canvases. You can definitely get Anchor or DMC and various notions at Stitches or Acorn Street but the silk and merino fiber (thread? Floss?) is pretty niche. But I don’t want to totally beat on them cuz even if they have some annoying properties, they are still a small local business trying to foster local crafting and fiber arts.
I’ve sewn, knitted, crocheted, cross stitched and embroidered on and off my whole life and only just recently learned that needle point was its own separate thing and as I poke around it feels like a weird elitist corner of the fiber world. I saw someone comment once that they would love to get into it but it’s so expensive and I was confused because DMC floss is like 75 cents a skein and needles are like a few bucks. But some needlepoint stuff is like crazy expensive. Like I saw a series of videos on TickTock where people were making needlepoint brick covers, which is some kind of traditional thing where you encase a brick in needlepoint and then use it as a doorstop, and I thought it looked cute and fun and thought I might try it but when I looked up brick cover patterns they were like $150!!! Like WTF. You still have to get all the thread and stitch it. But I guess the canvases are often hand painted so there is a lot of labor. But still.
Kinda the same story with only giving the price before taxes in the US, why would you not just tell your customer up front what they actually need to pay?
you can thank corporations for this one – in several states it is actually illegal to show the full price
Holy shit!
Kinda the same story with only giving the price before taxes in the US, why would you not just tell your customer up front what they actually need to pay?
In some cases, this maybe makes sense, because some purchasers are exempt from sales tax in some circumstances.
I've had tax exemptions in other countries. They can remove the tax at the register.
They slso can show both prices on the price tag
How many different prices are going to be on the tag? Including weight pricing that’s now 3-4 completely different prices for the same identical item on a single tag.
Because that’s not gonna be confusing lol. Seriously, do you not think about this other than wanting life simpler for yourself? There’s countless other people than you, and some are pretty damn dumb, think about others maybe too?
In our stores that would make 4 different prices on the tag.
I’m sure you can understand why that’s not a great idea?
That still doesn't make sense. This is going to be a small minority, let them do the math.
So you want to make minorities life’s harder to make yours easier..?
Wow, that’s a pretty selfish take.
One thing I really like in Asia is probably half of food places have signs outside with the prices or a menu or an app. No sitting down, looking at the menu and realizing you fucked up. It's more important when a meal can cost between 1 and 100 USD.
Dont waste your time ,just leave the shop
I already went there to get a few specific skeins of thread so leaving would have also been a waste of time. But I won’t return.
American bullshit lmao
It is easy for sellers to charge more than the MRP by charging for 'services' on top of the item price, such as a 'cooling charge' for cold drinks, or by manufacturers setting the MRP at up to ten times the expected sale price. In Sri Lanka, it has been reported that the MRP for basic items at food stalls is circumvented by the operators charging separately for ingredients in the food, such as the eggs in egg hoppers.[7] The MRP also hurts consumers in rural areas because if retailers cannot charge a higher price to make up for the higher cost of transportation and distribution to those areas, they may simply not stock those items.
Maybe you could mitigate those issues with tighter laws and stricter enforcement ... but it really seems like MRP isn't a magic bullet solution here.
The solution is to mandate that shops have price tags that include all the costs. Like most of europe has. I visit Canada somewhat regularly and am always annoyed by prices not including VAT.
A significant portion of people are gst and or pst exempt, and everyone needs to deal with taxes during tax season. Natives for example, you would be discriminating against them since they would be forced to do mental math only, instead of everyone at the POS. In fact in the current system, they don’t need to any, so you’re making their already discriminated against life simpler. Life isn’t black and white like everyone who doesn’t these price tags seem to think.
They are separate, because goods and taxes are totally different things. So they aren’t combined, because there is no reason too.
Cultures are different, and handles taxes differently, so it’s really not surprising they have a different way of handling what was supposed to be only temporary taxes. Your country has thrown that out the window with the way they’ve adopted it. They’ve said taxes aren’t temporary, and you’ve just rolled over and accepted it. It’s different in Canada still, we are still fighting it’s temporary, which is also why it’s dropped a few times over the years.
Why do you think Canada and US aren’t fighting to do the same as the other countries? Because it just doesn’t make any sense, but you guys can’t seem to understand that.
Why do you think Canada and US aren’t fighting to do the same as the other countries?
Mostly because they have been indoctrinated to think that any kind of tax is an evil commie idea instead of a necessity to support the state's finances which are required to raise everyone's standards of living.
Income tax, business tax, property tax, there’s plenty of other taxes, we support raising those and removing what was supposed to be a temporary tax brought in during the war. It’s why it’s been reduced a couple times already, why are you just ignoring this fact on your crusade here?
Your ancestors didn’t pay GST lol, indoctrinated… maybe look in the mirror? You’re letting your rights erode.
Don't insult people just because they do something and have reasons for doing so. You realize your country isn’t perfect, yeah…? And I’m sure there’s logical reasons for doing some things, which we look at and go wtf…? But we aren’t suggesting you change. That’s just asinine lmfao.
Oh I like that
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