Help.what kind of laws are there for a consumers when buying a item at a Retail store

[AutomaticDriver]

What I mean can a store employee refuse to let you buy a item(say I find a item on the shelf and I go to pay for it and they said I am sorry u cant buy that till March 1 or whatever.) What kind of laws are there about that?

[MrFattBill]

If it's a movie is mistakenly put out before street date and the computer catches it they are within their right to not sell it to you. I believe the retailer has every right to refuse a sale if they see fit., it is after all product they rightfully own up until the point you buy it from them.

I recently wanted to buy some blackout curtains, brown in color, from a local walmart but the system told the cashier the item was not "available for sale". I was able to buy the exact curtains but in a green color with no issues. We went back to the same walmart a few weeks later and ALL of the brown ones including the tag had been removed from the shelf. Possibly a recall or possibly an inventory error. Never the less they would not sell them to me no matter how much I pleaded.

Bill

[HDMe]

Some stores catch this stuff, others don't... Some items are not supposed to be put on the shelf until a certain date, but every once in a while someone jumps the gun.

Stores can get in trouble from the distributor/producer of the product if they sell stuff before the "street date" so it behooves them to catch their error before letting you purchase and walk out the door with it.

The design of such a system is meant to make a level playing field for all retail outlets, because it would be hard to wait until the last minute to ship orders out to all retail stores and guarantee they have them in time for the day of release... so lots of product ships 1-2 weeks or more early to ensure everyone gets a fair shot.

[Pirendeus]

Originally Posted by TheFatalPhenom

What I mean can a store employee refuse to let you buy a item(say I find a item on the shelf and I go to pay for it and they said I am sorry u cant buy that till March 1 or whatever.) What kind of laws are there about that?

It depends on what your state laws dictate, but you typically will not legally prevail.

[Agrare]

Just to add in from my experience (when i worked at TRU) as has been said the distributor puts a street date on the product but often the store will have it before hand. When the Star Wars Episode I figures were released (May 3rd) we had them for probably a month or longer in the back but couldn't sell them and there were fines and such by Hasbro if caught selling earlier

The other situation is, as was said a recall. I once scanned an item and got the do not sell. it was a toy for young kids (like up to 18 months or something) the reason it came up do not sell was because it was recalled. I simply explained to the customer why and obviously they didn't want to buy a recalled toy for their kid.

-Agrare

[atsbill123]

Originally Posted by TheFatalPhenom

What I mean can a store employee refuse to let you buy a item(say I find a item on the shelf and I go to pay for it and they said I am sorry u cant buy that till March 1 or whatever.) What kind of laws are there about that?

It would probably be against the law for them to sell it to you before the release date. So yeah...