When you run a small business, you experiment with many things to try to maximize your profits.

When these business owners decided to let customers shop before paying for their coffee, they hoped that it would encourage more purchases.

Unfortunately, the customer in this story ended up just walking out of the shop without paying for a thing (after complaining about the flavor of her drink).

“This has no flavor” and self imposed discounts

I own a small game store cafe in a small town.

I’m the only one within 45 miles but there’s still competition* from farther stores as people out here are used to driving long distances already.

Quiet days can be very nice.

This day was fairly quiet- we had a couple shoppers here and there but otherwise not so busy.

My husband was helping me this day and while he does his best, I’m still more adept at making coffees. This didn’t matter here though.

Generally when people would come in and order a coffee first thing we would get it made and give it to them while they continue to shop.

This seems like a smart business decision.

Cashing them out right away was something that I, at the time, concluded would create more hesitation in additional purchases.

No one wants to stand at the counter and scan their cards multiple times in a row.

I’ve since learned that people actually don’t mind that, and frequently when they’re here for long hours, it’s as though its a competition to see how many times they can scan their cards for a couple dollars at a time in one visit.

Wow, doesn’t this cost a lot in transaction fees?

One regular’s personal best was nine. We’ve begun running tabs.

A couple came in, first time visitors though I wouldn’t call them customers. They each ordered coffees, frappes I think, vanilla.

New customers are always a good thing.

They continued to browse so my husband just jumped on making them while I tidied up around him. They received their drinks and sat down in our comfy chairs to chat, then the man brings his back.

No flavor, he said. Weird, considering I was sure I’d seen him put just as much vanilla in as I normally do, and I had tasted it before made the same way and thought it was fantastic – but I added more; so at this point the drink had probably ten pumps of vanilla in it; blended it back up, and gave it to him.

Good customer experiences are important, especially for new businesses.

I was feeling particularly anxious about this screw up- we were a fairly new shop at the time and still learning the ropes, trying to entice customers to come back or to visit in the first place.

How could we have screwed up something so simple? Surely these people wouldn’t be coming back and I had failed.

At least the customers are happy now!

They thanked me and continued to chat, shopping around a bit, enthused about how the coffee finally had enough flavor, and we got busy doing other things, helping someone else at the counter, cleaning etc, discussing how we’d made the coffee and how we could do better.

Then they left.

So, they basically stole the coffee?

No transaction had been rung up, they never approached the counter to attempt to pay- no, they simply left, over-vanilla’d frappes and all.

I blame this partially on myself, as I hadn’t stopped them on the way out, partially on my husband, as he had handled the order, and partially on the two people who complained about the flavor of the coffee and left without paying.

What kind of customer does this?

I’ve never seen them again.

Lesson learned- new visitors always pay for the coffees up front. Also, some people truly do have dead tastebuds.

Some customers are so entitled that they don’t mind stealing from a small business.

Read on to see what the people in the comments say about this story.

Getting payment information first is essential.

Good point, I didn’t even think about this.

You really have to watch out for some customers. They can’t always be trusted.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.