> They apparently take the quaint view that customer
> satisfaction is more important than wringing the last
> nickel of profit out of every transaction.

I've never understood why that kind of policy is not more common. I've only once seen something similar. A customer in front of me at Tesco had bought some kind of fruit the operator didn't recognise. They turned to the supervisor behind them and asked. The supervisor took hold of the bag, looked at it. Then said 'I don't know. Free'.

Yet other times I've been stuck in a queue while the checkout operator gets up and goes across the store to verify a shelf-edge price, returns with the same price as the till had. Then has to go back again with the customer who points to a different shelf where a half price offer was marked. It took five minutes. The operator apologised for the delay and being British, I said it wasn't a problem.