Former Kmart worker spills store secrets

YouTuber Rita Kaminski spent four years working at Kmart as a teenager and is letting the rest of us in on a couple of nifty secrets.

In a video shared earlier this year, the Sydney-sider explains the best times and tactics to get a discount, starting with the barcodes.

Check the barcode:

Kmart often updates its product range, and apparently the way to tell the model of any particular item is to check the last digit on the barcode.

“The last digit on the barcode changes after every new season,” she says in the video, “So if there are two toasters that look exactly the same and the last digit of one barcode is eight and the other is nine, the one with the eight should be cheaper.”

Wait and see:

Patience is a virtue, and if you have your eye on a particular item that isn’t in the catalogue, coming back later could pay off.

The prices of clothes, books and makeup change regularly, she says, so check in often if you have the time, or befriend someone who works there who can give you a shout if the price drops.

Unfortunately however, this only really works on items that have been in store for a long time, not the new, cult buys everyone wants.

Don’t forget to ask:

But as always, it never hurts to just ask.

“If you see a clothing item that has makeup on it, feel free to go up to the registers and ask them for a discount,” she says.

As a former teenage employee herself, she says many of the younger, casual staff members don’t really know what they’re talking about, or are sick of working at Kmart and just don’t care.

So she believes your chances of getting an item discounted increase if you catch a young employee, or someone at the end of a long shift.

“If it’s really busy or late at night, they’re less inclined to care (about discounting an item),” she says.

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