If I had to add up how much I’ve spent on creamy salted peanut butter over the past 10 years, I could probably fund someone’s college education with that money. How many jars have I consumed? It's probably best that I don't know...
But buying more of a certain item than anyone else isn’t necessarily something to be ashamed of, because you just might be a store’s most valuable customer! X user Laney Delaney posted about how their brother contributed so heavily to their local store’s chocolate milk sales that they wanted to be informed when he left for college, and readers have been inspired to share their own similar stories. So enjoy hearing about these passionate customers' experiences, and keep reading to find a conversation between Laney and Bored Panda! Image credits: notlaneydelaney
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This is how I currently am with my local gas station and Iced Honey Buns. Every other day I come in and one for this morning and the next. It's been about 2 years and they've started taking 2 honey buns and putting them behind the register in case they run out before I get there.
It's the little things <3
Guy at the gas station I bought my booze at tried to guilt trip me for going sober because they ordered so much for me.
I don't go to that gas station anymore.
You can buy booze at a gas station in the US? That sounds like a dangerous and stupid combination
That happened to me in college with creamy chicken ramen. I’d buy a box at a time (24 pack) every two weeks for about two years. I went through the checkout and the manager was scanning, and he said “So, you’re the one!”.
It's been a few years since Laney posted about their brother's passion for chocolate milk, but we reached out to them via email and lucky for us, they were happy to have a chat with Bored Panda. "I was a junior in college when I tweeted this, and my brother was a senior in high school," they explained. "He was on the school’s wrestling team and was burning a tremendous amount of calories. I did the math back then, and he was averaging around 7 glasses of chocolate milk per day."
"When my mom told me about this interaction with the cashier, I thought it was funny, and tweeted it out right away," they continued. "I never expected it to get as much traction as it did, but it took off immediately. It wasn’t long before I had big Instagram meme accounts asking to repost it, and I even had a company reach out and send me a bunch of free Nesquik."
I used to regularly go to a local pub in my moms very small town when I went to visit. Every time I went I’d always get the same thing; the cheapest Shiraz on the shelf.
My mom was good friends with the pub owner and he’d always ask my mom to let him know when I was visiting so he could order in a fresh bottle for me each time (I only visited once every couple months so they wouldn’t usually stock it otherwise).
The owner eventually sold that pub to someone else, and now I no longer get to have a freshly opened bottle of cheap a*s Shiraz when I visit, but it was always so nice to feel appreciated and missed.
That's really sweet. That's good customer service right there.
This happened to me when I left for college but for bulk mozzarella cheese as I made a homemade pizza everyday for years. They were swimming in cheese for months after I left.
Shops here seem to do the opposite - my local very occasionally has good cheddar, and I buy half the shelf. And then they stop for about half a year again. I found one chain that sold Appletizer, bought shedloads, and they stopped altogether 😭
We were also curious how Laney feels about a tweet of theirs from 2019 still circulating online. "It’s pretty surreal to see this tweet still going around. I’ve had a lot of old friends across every stage of my life reach out when they see it’s been reposted again, tagging me on Instagram or texting me TikToks," they shared. "At this point, many of the reposts have gotten more likes than I ever did on the original tweet!"
The parents of my friend growing up owned a campground. With a little convenience store on-site.
And for years my boy would chug Quick chocolate milks all day long. And then I started working summers with him. And I started chugging em.
And then one summer I show up and no Quick anywhere. Not even a strawberry.
Turns out someone told my buddy to actually look at the nutrition label on those things. It was bad. Real bad. So he quit em. And since he accounted for like 97% of all Quick consumption at the campsite, they got rid of em. Stopped stocking them altogether.
Man I was cranky that summer.
Meanwhile he musta lost 30lbs that year.
Okay, to Nestle Quik won't be in the health food section any time soon. No big surprise there. Yes, it's LOADED with sugar. Again, no surprises. But I think describing Quik as "It was bad. Real bad." is a bit of overstatement. It's no worse than 90% of the stuff I ate growing up. I had my fair share of nestle Quik and I survived.
This was me, pre-covid, when I started dirty keto with four of my work friends and was eating bacon, sausage, and eggs everyday. A local Cafe opened with these as options. We ordered for 7 weeks straight a total of 12 pieces of bacon, 12 sausage links, and 16 egg everyday. Some weeks we even ordered breakfast as well.
One day we all collectively said how about we stop and get some KFC instead today. The next week the Cafe owner drove to our work and asked wtf happened and was pissed we hadn't ordered at all. He was overstocked on breakfast items and freaked out on us.
As far as the reactions the tweet has received, Laney says their favorite response was from a TikToker who said it was an “old meme that was proven false.”
"I don’t know exactly what evidence they found that made them conclude it was fake," Laney noted. "But unless they were in contact with the cashier or my mother, it seems unlikely that they had anything tangible."
Reminds me of when I worked backstage for musicals in highschool. I would buy 2 packs of skittles from concession for every show and eat one over the course of each Act. Week 2 of doing this I go out before the show and they’re out of skittles—then they pull out a new box and say ‘we knew you were coming so we got more just for you’.
I wish i had two●packs●of●skittles●for●every●show- money when i was in highschool 😂
There is a grocery store/gas station near my parents lake house that stocks fresh produce and meat. The problem is that the only people buying it are the weekend lake goers. So it’s very hard for them to “time” their stocks so that they don’t run out but aren’t left for waste.
I was talking to the owner (who walks around the store) and he said that their meat order is directly tied to the weather forecast for the upcoming weekends because it drives lake traffic which drives hamburger demand.
Truly fascinating insight into the local supply chain management of a mom and pop gas station.
I used to work in hospitality and we'd stock based on weather, sport events, season, bank holidays...
We also asked Laney if there are any products that they're single handedly creating demand for. "I’m definitely not making any regular purchases anywhere close to the scale of what my brother was doing back in 2019," they shared. "I have been told that I’m weird for liking banana Laffy Taffy’s, so if those ever get discontinued I’ll be very disappointed."
One of my local supermarkets that i do my periodic shop at, I buy so many sachets of this one seasoning they do (cause its close enough to the mix i make myself and i eat the meal like 2 times a week), that they started putting aside a half dozen for me at the end of the month.
I was a little unsure how to feel the first time it happened, but honestly I kinda love it.
My problem is the opposite, as soon as I find a product that I really like it always seems the store stops stocking it...........not temporarily out, just stopped carrying it.
My local grocery store does not stock ginger beer anymore. The manager still orders a case for me.
I mean sure she only does that cause were related but its still neat.
This is my weakness. I drank my little local shop dry of ginger beer and they didn't get any in for weeks!
As far as what Laney's brother, Lex, has to say about all of this, he wanted to share three things with Bored Panda: "I pretty much never drink chocolate milk anymore. I was a wrestler at the time. And I regret nothing.”
Have this at my brothers grocery store he works at. They want to be notified when im leaving town so they can reduce their order for gatorade.
I don't get why, tho --- It's not like it's going out of fashion, or it will expire in the next few years? If they routinely order stuff their shelves are overrun by, they need new management not alerts from their customers.
The store I work at, we order things specifically that our regular customers buy. In fact, we carried a flavor of chewing tobacco for one person in particular who would buy 5-7 cans every week. Unfortunately, he passed away unexpectedly and we're stuck with about 2 rolls of it because nobody else has ever asked for it in the entire time I've worked there.
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Paying too much, but it's good anyways, switched to Mio sport myself, goes alot further, with regular water.
Lol my local supermarket(huge one)always had 3 oysters because my workmate bought them every Friday no one else eats that s**t here.
I always bought japanese peanuts (I think that's their English name) in large amounts from a little shop nearby, and when I stopped buying because it got too expensive, they were calling me so they could get rid of them because they had like 5 times more stock after
A store I frequent keeps purchasing Arizona Arnold Palmers practically just for me, because I buy one almost every day, haha. One of the cashiers asked me if it was my favorite and said I was basically the only one to get it
Looks good and ingredients sound delicious. I should start joining OP in buying this.
When I left my college town to move to Seattle, the local Subway just down the street gave me a bunch of swag and basically had a going away party for me because I was there for pretty much every lunch for like 3 years.
I used to rib the freshman college kids they'd hire because I'd recognize the new faces. I probably... went there too much. I miss 5$ footlongs....
Every time I go to Subway since they opened nearby 5 years ago I always bought Bev a double chicken tikka salad, no olives, no beetroot, no cheese extra gherkins and extra jalapeños with light Mayo. Anytime I go in now they greet me with "Hi [name], the usual?" and I nod, and we chat while they make it. One day I went in and without skipping a beat they said "You will be glad to hear we don't do beetroot any more" very few people were buying it. They had new staff recently and just as I opened my mouth to order they did it automatically. Apparently I'm part of the local Subway training program, where they have my picture, so trainees know who to look for. Once when I had covid (after the lockdowns) they got worried about me and when I went in again they gave me a free cookie
Not so wholesome, and I'm definitely not proud of it, but this happened with me and Colt 45s at my local liquor store when I was in my early 20s. The owner started ordering more and asked me to tell him if I ever move or quit drinking. And I did.
I live in a small town outside of a big city, and go to the local gas station pretty much every day before work. I found out im the only reason they keep grape nos in stock, which is kinda neat but also made me realize maybe I drink it too much.
You'd be surprised how legitimate an issue this can be in small towns of around >5k ppl or less. There will be times where the local supermarket i worked at would have to order a certain product every truck or at the very least every couple of weeks, and when a certain customer moved away, died, or got tired of that particular item, sales just stagnated.
This sorta happened to me, but with alcohol. I got really into voodoo ranger imperial IPA for a little while and was getting a case weekly. Apparently I was the only who regularly got the full cases of it so every week they made sure to stock some just for me. When I finally started cutting back a few months ago, a buddy of mine that goes to the same store said they were asking about me because they had a bunch of cases that were sitting unsold and taking up space.
I have an older gentleman who has developed health issues but still loves the flavor of beer. He goes through 2 cases of Busch NA a week. The store goes through maybe another case a month. They always have 5 on hand in case we run out and the owner has said he’ll probably take it off the shelf and have a case in the back room by request if/when he can’t drink it anymore.
I buy so much Amp Energy...and so much more than literally anyone else in town....that a couple of the local gas stations just hold their cases in the back for me (and let me buy them by the case even though they're technically not supposed to). Lol. Sometimes they don't even stock any on the floor at all.
This has been a lifesaver, since in my area Amp Energy goes through weird shortages and our supplier isn't the most consistent.
If I ever quit drinking it, they're going to be swimming in Amp in the back for all eternity unless I tell them. Lol.
I can't drink another Amp Energy🤢 I subsisted on them when I worked a call center and went to school and can't touch them anymore. Dx
I bought out my local dollar store entire Mountain Dew stock. Several times, to the point they asked me to stop.
I did this once, except it was for strawberry fruit-by-the-foot at a supermarket in East Boston.
The bot selecting the photo only picked up on the word ‘strawberry’ and missed what product op was actually talking about…
i'm pretty sure I'm the only one buying the Coke Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine at my local supermarket. And I buy a lot. I wonder if I'll start being recognized in a while. Haven't found this coke in any other supermarket (even the same chain) but this one.
I drink Coke Zero, but I need the caffeine. My parents drink caffeine free Diet Coke - I question whether they have any taste buds left if they can stomach that nasty stuff.
A colleague of mine had pizza delivery turn up at his door, he hadn't ordered. Pizza guy apologised, said he assumed it was him because it was that road, and he's a regular
I had this with my woolies driver! He turned up with shopping for me, but it was actually a lady down the road. LOL
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Lots of this is store owners knowing their customers and what they want. Which is awesome.
I love strawberry filled panda cookies (an asian sweet snack, I just forgot the actual name), I would stock up on bags of them for the month so much that the owner of the mini mart would stock up on certain weeks just for me
I used to buy so many berries at my local farmers market that one day when the ATM broke and I didn’t have enough cash, they gave me an entire flat on credit
After prison, I stayed in a hotel, and then a hotel. My mom gave me a small slow-cooker, which I used for canned soups, pasta, and the like. I happen to be a fan of Sweet Sue's chicken and dumplings. The other brands, I don't like at all. This was at the tail end of the pandemic, and Sweet Sue's chicken and dumplings wasn't available often here. The few times I saw it, I'd buy all of it.
I used to be that way with Del Pinos ravioli. It was the absolute best. They went under during covid, so it's gone now. A real shame.
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Interesting how none of these are like "oh the store cannot keep kale in stock because I eat so much of it!" As a reformed soda addict who still has a candy problem... guys this stuff is poison trash and should be consumed rarely as a treat. Get help. You're killing your insides. No judgment just seriously concerned.
I begged my local convenience store to start carrying my favorite chocolate milk. After years of dropping not so subtle hints, they finally started carrying my chocolate milk. (Borden) They went so far as to get new refrigerators instead of the weird cold open shelf that they used to have. Sales are so good they can barely keep it on the shelves, I have to get there early just so I can get one. Win win!!
Many years ago I worked as a beekeeper in Texas. Every summer we'd ship bees to North Dakota, so we'd go there to work for 4-5 weeks at a time. The little local bar would have to heavily increase his Budweiser order when we were there.
my wife once told me a soap she found that she liked. the store only had 2 so i bought them. next time i went there were 4 - i bought them. it got up to about 12 on the shelf when she told me "no more". those 12 stayed on the shelf for over a year
Coke Blak in the little glass bottles. 2008ish I think. Had a guy at the gas station who was pretty much my Coke dealer. Then one day he couldn't get it anymore. A part of me died that day I think.
I once had a customer who would buy an inside door handle for his Ford F-150 once a month. The latch was binding up but would have cost him a couple hundred dollars to replace, so he just bought a new door handle once every few months for five bucks.
All the liquor stores in my area kept running out of pints of bacardi silver. The bicardi rep couldnt figure it out. Im talking probably ten stores. Turns out there are two of us doing it. When the rep asked why we both told him half pint is not enough pint is just right right fifth is an argument with the gf and half gallon equals jail.
My mother religiously bought creamy lemon chicken soup for years. It was hard to find and the second it hit the shelves, sold out. Supermarket refused to stock it because it didn't sell according to the manager. Funny, there was a cue of people moaning it wasn't on the shelf each week. The supermarket is known for doing this c**p because it's a small town.
I'm convinced our local super market only keeps ordering buldak because my roommates buy the s**t out of it 😅
I've been going to the same pharmacy now for so long, I walk in and the staff all know me - and luckily for me, I rarely need to show my i.d anymore (restricted meds) as I don't even bother taking my purse any more.
Er oh, my husband and I have been eating low carb the last two weeks. No beer for us. I bet our favorite brewery's staff is wondering...
One thing I’ve got a taste for, which I feel no one else is buying; “Ben Shaws” brand of (bottled) “Dandelion & Burdock” carbonated drink. There are people who say it tastes similar in flavour to sarsaparilla. Being from the UK, I’ve never seen or tried any of that, but at least in my opinion; I can say that Dandelion & Burdock has a sort of licorice flavour, maybe with a slight herbal taste. Needless to say, I’ve noticed that it’s not as popular as other drinks & even my fam won’t touch the stuff, LOL. But, hey … at least I can stock up on my Dandelion & Burdock drink & it’s guaranteed that no one is going to guzzle it on me! 😂
A colleague of mine had pizza delivery turn up at his door, he hadn't ordered. Pizza guy apologised, said he assumed it was him because it was that road, and he's a regular
I had this with my woolies driver! He turned up with shopping for me, but it was actually a lady down the road. LOL
Load More Replies... Lots of this is store owners knowing their customers and what they want. Which is awesome.
I love strawberry filled panda cookies (an asian sweet snack, I just forgot the actual name), I would stock up on bags of them for the month so much that the owner of the mini mart would stock up on certain weeks just for me
I used to buy so many berries at my local farmers market that one day when the ATM broke and I didn’t have enough cash, they gave me an entire flat on credit
After prison, I stayed in a hotel, and then a hotel. My mom gave me a small slow-cooker, which I used for canned soups, pasta, and the like. I happen to be a fan of Sweet Sue's chicken and dumplings. The other brands, I don't like at all. This was at the tail end of the pandemic, and Sweet Sue's chicken and dumplings wasn't available often here. The few times I saw it, I'd buy all of it.
I used to be that way with Del Pinos ravioli. It was the absolute best. They went under during covid, so it's gone now. A real shame.
Load More Replies... Interesting how none of these are like "oh the store cannot keep kale in stock because I eat so much of it!" As a reformed soda addict who still has a candy problem... guys this stuff is poison trash and should be consumed rarely as a treat. Get help. You're killing your insides. No judgment just seriously concerned.
I begged my local convenience store to start carrying my favorite chocolate milk. After years of dropping not so subtle hints, they finally started carrying my chocolate milk. (Borden) They went so far as to get new refrigerators instead of the weird cold open shelf that they used to have. Sales are so good they can barely keep it on the shelves, I have to get there early just so I can get one. Win win!!
Many years ago I worked as a beekeeper in Texas. Every summer we'd ship bees to North Dakota, so we'd go there to work for 4-5 weeks at a time. The little local bar would have to heavily increase his Budweiser order when we were there.
my wife once told me a soap she found that she liked. the store only had 2 so i bought them. next time i went there were 4 - i bought them. it got up to about 12 on the shelf when she told me "no more". those 12 stayed on the shelf for over a year
Coke Blak in the little glass bottles. 2008ish I think. Had a guy at the gas station who was pretty much my Coke dealer. Then one day he couldn't get it anymore. A part of me died that day I think.
I once had a customer who would buy an inside door handle for his Ford F-150 once a month. The latch was binding up but would have cost him a couple hundred dollars to replace, so he just bought a new door handle once every few months for five bucks.
All the liquor stores in my area kept running out of pints of bacardi silver. The bicardi rep couldnt figure it out. Im talking probably ten stores. Turns out there are two of us doing it. When the rep asked why we both told him half pint is not enough pint is just right right fifth is an argument with the gf and half gallon equals jail.
My mother religiously bought creamy lemon chicken soup for years. It was hard to find and the second it hit the shelves, sold out. Supermarket refused to stock it because it didn't sell according to the manager. Funny, there was a cue of people moaning it wasn't on the shelf each week. The supermarket is known for doing this c**p because it's a small town.
I'm convinced our local super market only keeps ordering buldak because my roommates buy the s**t out of it 😅
I've been going to the same pharmacy now for so long, I walk in and the staff all know me - and luckily for me, I rarely need to show my i.d anymore (restricted meds) as I don't even bother taking my purse any more.
Er oh, my husband and I have been eating low carb the last two weeks. No beer for us. I bet our favorite brewery's staff is wondering...
One thing I’ve got a taste for, which I feel no one else is buying; “Ben Shaws” brand of (bottled) “Dandelion & Burdock” carbonated drink. There are people who say it tastes similar in flavour to sarsaparilla. Being from the UK, I’ve never seen or tried any of that, but at least in my opinion; I can say that Dandelion & Burdock has a sort of licorice flavour, maybe with a slight herbal taste. Needless to say, I’ve noticed that it’s not as popular as other drinks & even my fam won’t touch the stuff, LOL. But, hey … at least I can stock up on my Dandelion & Burdock drink & it’s guaranteed that no one is going to guzzle it on me! 😂
