I have a small independent shop. I usually spend $2-4k a month. AutoZone says thats not enough for a commercial account so I just use my rewards acct to keep track of purchases.
I spend the majority of my parts budget at napa already. I go to AZ because its closer and even with my commercial pricing at napa, a lot of things are still cheaper.
For the last 10 years I've been able to return and exchange items without a receipt, with just my phone number.
Recently my local store has started hassling me and refusing returns or exchanges without receipt unless its a warranty.
They even went so far as to refuse to exchange a wrong part I tried to return a half hour after it was purchased (Asked for a prius inverter pump, was sold an engine water pump, parts runner didn't know the difference) I had to drive to the store, back to my shop to get the receipt and back to the store to do the exchange. I didn't return for several weeks after that.
Is this a new policy or is the newish SM making up his own rules? Its awfully fishy that it started shortly after advance and knechts went out limiting local options.
If this is a policy, how do you feel about having to enforce it even if it drives customers to the competitors?
I know my local NAPA loves it. They just moved me to a better pricing tier because I've been spending more there lately.
Edit:
Thank you for the suggestions to talk to other stores. I called the hub store in the the next town over. SM (I assume, maybe commercial manager?) looked at my rewards account, took my CC and set me up with a COD pro account on the spot. No argument.
He also told me this isn't the first time he's dealt with this "misunderstanding" as he called it.
Unfortunately, despite his help, that store is almost 30 mi from where I'm at and at this point I really don't want to give the local AZ any business on pure principle despite actually liking most of the crew there. I got to get rid of this bad taste of my mouth first then maybe...
As far as the returns go, he explained that technically I'm supposed to have to make some kind of a phone call to customer service but they have never enforced that. If I can give them an invoice number, which is right there on my rewards app, they never argue.
Not having the receipt was never the point anyway, I always have the receipt I just don't want to have to carry them all around. The point was customer service. If I'm spending money in your store on a consistent basis, I expect you to at least make an attempt to go above and beyond without complaining to keep my business. Maybe they were following policy, that's fine. They can be anal about policy with other customers while I shop somewhere else.
Maybe y'all are right, maybe I rubbed someone there the wrong but they made it clear they don't want my business so I guess they're going to get what they wanted at least until I get over being butt hurt.
The account will still be helpful, it's not like I'm a stranger in the hub store. Me or a parts runner is there at least a couple times a week.