I disagree with this argument and arguments like it for two main reasons:
A) Large companies tend to hire the best/smartest/most talented people they can find to run/make important decisions. With a current market cap of approximately $169.50 Billion, Home Depot is a huge company. Therefore, we can assume that Home Depot has extremely smart people working for them.
I have read on here and have personally been told by corporate that their policy regarding penny items is one of the following:
1) Penny items can only be sold for last clearance.
2) Stores are allowed to make their own policy regarding penny items.
Changing corporate policy in response to increasing customer complaints about the sale
of penny items to either of those listed above would only serve to increase the number of complaints they received from customers.
If they change to the first, the call volume will only increase as stores that originally allowed penny items adopt the new corporate policy and start blocking the sale of penny items. Changing to the second would only add more confusion to the situation and increase the number of unhappy customers.
The person actually in charge of creating/initiating the new policy doesn't even have to be that bright or smart to see this. The only requirement they must posses is the ability to think rationally, which I think is a fair assumption.
There are only three real ways to effectively address increasing customer complaints regarding penny items
1) Remove all penny items from the sale floor so customers can't purchase them.
2) All items on the sale floor that ring up for a penny must sell for a penny.
3) Change their accounting/inventory methods so that no item is priced at a penny.
The first is the real root of the problem and there is no way to completely eliminate it. The most effective way to decrease the possibility of a penny item remaining on the shelf is to effectively market/display clearance items. The fact that most here are able to flip clearance items for a substantial profit is evidence that some Home Depot stores are horribly inefficient at marketing their clearance items. If stores didn't have their clearance stuff randomly strewn across the store in unorganized heaps, it would sell before it hit a penny.
If #2 actually was corporate policy and was made known to all store managers, customer complaints would drop dramatically. Home Depot corporate could also use the annual number of penny items as a metric to determine a particular stores clearancing capability and MET team.
The third would end all the complaints and confusion regarding penny items, but would ****.
B) Home Depot currently has 2,274 stores. Think about penny item complaints vs the total number of complaints they receive every day. The number of penny item complaints would have to be huge and increasing at a huge rate for them to issue a new corporate policy addressing the issue. While this is possible, I don't think it is very likely.
I've only called corporate once when I was not allowed to buy penny items. I had a shopping cart with about 35-40 Malibu Lights that I tried to get through all at once. I got like 27 through before I got blocked:
Had these remaining:
The woman I spoke with said that it was Home Depots corporate policy that stores were allowed to set their own rules regarding the sale of penny items. Unsatisfied, I decided to email them a few days later with an email address I knew wasn't linked in any way to my HD profile. The associate that responded said that it was Home Depots corporate policy that penny items must sell for the last clearance price they were marked at within the last 30 days, whatever that means.
In conclusion, I think Home Depot corporate policy is totally dependent on who you talk to at corporate and who they ask when they themselves don't know.
I don't think I'll be calling corporate to complain about penny items in the future. I'll just stick to arguing with the manager and if that fails, just throw on "Carry on my Wayward Son" as I head off to the next store.