When out shopping, customers might not realize that the price of an item they are interested in could be different based on the way it was stocked by store staff.
After customers at Hobby Lobby found that prices were different for the same item on shelves in-store, from dollhouse furniture to home decor, shoppers at TJX brands like Marshalls and T.J. Maxx are noticing that even identical items can be priced differently despite sitting on the same shelf.
More recently, a Marshalls shopper says she went to investigate this for herself, to see if her local store was using similar practices. In a video posted on TikTok, @lululavkaila says she found the same set of makeup brushes priced at $5.99 and $7.99 hanging on the same hook in the discount store.
“I just would like to know for all the people wondering about the theory at Marshalls, here is the front one, it says $7.99, and then I’m looking at the exact same thing in the back row, and it’s $5.99,” she says in the video. “So it is true, you guys. Always look in the back row because it is cheaper. They are scamming us.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to @lululavkaila via comment on the video and to Marshalls’ parent company TJX via email.
Some viewers suggested the price difference could be due to the item being labeled differently, with one being advertised as an essential brush set, and the other an eye-defining brush set.
“If you look at the name of the product on the packaging they are different,” one commenter wrote. “Front one is ‘eye defining..’ last one was ‘essential eye…’”
“If you read it’s a different brush set,” another said.
“It looks like those are two different items,” a further user commented. “They’re only guilty of is making the same visual mistake you did when shelving.”
However, the poster said she closely inspected the two products and found they were exactly the same, though they were labeled differently.
“We compared them in person, it was the exact same brush set,” she wrote. “Although I see the difference on the title, they were not different at all.”
@lululavkaila Marshalls, I trusted you 💔 #marshallsprice #marshallsshopping #marshallstiktok #fypツ ♬ original sound – lululavkaila
Others suggested it might be an outcome of the same item being purchased in different lots, or other factors at play that the poster might not be aware of.
“They do have different ticket numbers though so they were bought and then priced at different prices according to what they paid for the lot,” one commented.
“You guys are all acting like we do it personally… the tickets come on the items.. we just put them out,” another explained. “Do you think we really pay attention?”
“You just don’t understand how it works if you’ve never worked there,” a commenter said.
