So the item wasn't supposed to be on clearance in the first place if it went back to regular price. Seems like this is sort of an exception to other clearance items, as the price typically only jumps back up when they sell out in-store, & that more applies to online.
Just like you said, the price change came from the top. 99% doubtful any manager at Lowes has the ability to get a price changed that quickly. Maybe he sent a note, but I doubt it had an impact on them changing the price. Though I'm sure he is thinking he did and now acting like the king of retail (guess he acted that way before too).
Bosch Blaze Laser combo - $69.98 - I thought I saw this cheaper in-store by $10 or $20, but was in a rush. I will try to get back in a couple days & confirm.
So from my direct retail experience, this seems to be an issue of an algorithm gone wild. Algo put out a price drop, it gets processed without an actual human being looking over and approving it. I.e. look at the Home Depot thread.
In this case, something caught up and a human being put it out of its misery.
Could have been a manager or a regional person making a phone call.
Or... really could have been those same systems triggered, i.e., thanks to people buying more than 1 at a time, reports are generated that there was a 10x increase in amount of SKU XXXXXXX being sold..... go figure out why.
This was obviously a mistake and no normal human being would of priced a current trimmer at more than 80% off when there is tons of new stock, without first going through regular price drops and promos.
As far as if a store manager can have an immediate impact, while I do not have direct experience with Lowes or Home Depot, with other large national chains such as Staples, OfficeDepot/Max and BestBuy, where I covered a large territory for #1 tech company in a number of categories... YES, good managers can get large chain to fix something, especially something as simple as an abnormal price or a price mistake, and in most cases, it gets caught at the retail level, not corporate. (i.e. at Corporate there may be only 1 or 2 people dealing with price approvals), things get by, but once it hits the store level, you have thousands of eyeballs. First few hours you have knowledgeable employees in those departments taking advantage of things, then management... and at that point there are questions raised.
As far as those reports, when I worked in management in one of those chains, every day we would pull up a few reports... 1. price changes and overrides, 2. abnormal sales volume for skus.
