Retail tends to run a little ahead of the actual calendar: Nightmare Night stock is put out in summer, and Hearth's Warming merchandise is slammed onto the shelves at the instant that's gone. So Invoice, who's temporarily running Barnyard Bargains while Mr. Rich is on vacation, sees absolutely nothing wrong with announcing the first Back To School Sale less than one week into summer.

The kids of Ponyville have a different opinion. And it comes with picket signs.

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As words go, very few utterances get a businesspony's attention like 'free'. And making a profit on free? All Mr. Rich has to do is ask his cashiers to discreetly slip the same sample item into every customer's cart, one sample per day, and Barnyard Bargains will get paid for that. Because the marketing company wants feedback on the new products, and that means getting them to the public.

And the public has feedback. Lots of feedback, especially when everypony is getting the same sample, every single day, whether they wanted it or not.

The public also knows where Mr. Rich's office door is.

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This story is a sequel to Barnyard Barge-Ins

Shopping carts cost money. Nopony outside the staff at Barnyard Bargains seems to understand that. Carts are taken deep into Ponyville, repurposed for any number of activities, never seen again... and Mr. Rich is sick of buying replacements. So it couldn't hurt to use a few new magical and mundane methods of keeping them around, could it? No harm whatsoever possible?

The two-word answer: 'It's Ponyville.'

(While this story takes place after Barnyard Barge-Ins, it can be read as a stand-alone: no knowledge of those events is required.)

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"The first thing new students of the Great Ponyville Homecoming Holiday Riot may wish to fix upon their minds is that ultimately, Mr. Rich's intentions were good and thus it could be said that in some ways, what happened was not truly his fault."

Black Friday comes to Equestria.

Once.

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This story is a sequel to Cart-ography

Every Barnyard Bargains comes with its own set of paperwork: this includes business licensing, sales tax certificates, and employee records. And every franchise separately files and renews the appropriate documents in their own jurisdiction, as needed -- until this year, when some unknown genius decided it would be more efficient to have just about everything done in one place. Mr. Rich, who would never ask anypony to go through something he wouldn't deal with himself, will need to hang onto several things in order to get this accomplished.

His documents.
His identification.
And, as much as it can be hoped for, his sanity.

(While this story takes place after Barnyard Barge-Ins and Cart-ography, no knowledge of those events is necessary: it can be read as a stand-alone.)

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All Mr. Rich wanted was a court-arranged signed promise stating that Rainbow wouldn't practice stunts over Barnyard Bargains any more. But judges are fickle creatures, and so the ruling put her in the aisles. Working off the damages while supposedly learning some respect for the store itself.

She wants to be a good employee. She's dedicating herself to this.

It's odd how all of Rainbow's interests seem to end in that one crater the same way.

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