Recently I came across some angry Facebook posts where a site had admitted there were pricing errors and they canceled all the orders instead of honoring them. This is one of the issues with buying from websites based in other countries as they are governed by their own laws and not the country the buyer is from. It was a set of makeup brushes and people have been demanding that they be sold at the price they saw, and the problem is on the website orders can be canceled, and prices can change. However, the laws in a brick and mortar store are different, if they price ticket says a price then the store must honor it even if the computer shows a different price. Some staff will refuse because they don't understand the law, but a good manager would write it off and change that price ticket quickly. The same happened when I saw a Hotpoint fridge that was really cheap and the next day the price had changed. I wonder if they would have honored the price if I had ordered it rather than think about it?
Pricing errors can be really annoying sometimes. I was in a store the other day that had a buy one get one free offer on, but the register wasn't registering the buy one get one free price. The manager refused to honour it as well, which really annoyed me as the price of one item in that store was more expensive than in any others. I abandoned the purchase when they refused to honour the price on the shelf because that's unfair. It was even on their TV advert and on their website. They lost a customer refusing to honour a price.
I'm assuming this is in the UK? I too would have abandoned the purchase, but would have asked for the manager's name so you could contact head office for clarification of the offer. I then used the contact form on the website to ask the store for clarification and it seemed that the staff were supposed to have been trained on the offer I was trying to redeem. I would have contacted the company as they probably are unaware of the glitch and that the staff had not been trained. Sometimes these managers have no training, and they just put anyone willing to do the hours in the job. That's why retail has gone down as a career, because they have no skills or training in solving issues and dealing with customers sadly.
These pricing problems seem to happen frequently when an item is only on sale for a certain lengt of time and the price changes for instance the next day. I am talking about something like a store sale. In most cases, they will go ahead and charge you the reduced price for the item even if the register is saying something different. If a store insists that the price is what the current price is, I will not buy the item. If a sticker price is showing on the shelves, that is what I am going by.
I wonder what would happen if one ordered some goods from an online store and then contacted being informed of the fact that the price quotation was erroneous. There are other circumstances where the price adjustment happens to go downwards and the buyer would feel cheated. For that reason, its always proper to negotiate a discount before one makes a purchase.
Well I have a feeling that this kind of thing happens a lot more often than a lot of people may think. That said, I am curious as to what would happen in the scenario that @remnant laid out above, but I would hope that the consumer is able to get the correct price, but I cannot say I would be surprised to hear otherwise. Thanks for sharing.
I strongly believe the retailer should always honour the price at which the item was advertised. It's not the customer's fault that they saw the price and based on that, decided to commit to a purchase. I worked in retail in the UK at many different stores, and this was always the policy, which I think is the best way to go about things. I would be seriously miffed if a retailer refused to honour the cheaper price, and would probably never return LOL
As there are many one day sales and price matches, if you read the small print (as I do) most online retailers will refund the difference if the item was bought within 24 hours at a lower price on the site. It has happened to me, and they do honor it, but you have to call or email them as soon as it happens. That's why you should check prices daily in case there is an adjustment and you can claim back the difference.
I encounter this periodically, like when I see on the machine that the price has increased by 2 cents from the price listed on the shelf. I think that is the usual price increase, so I have no choice but to give the deficit cash, while pointing out the outdated info on the shelf to the cashier. I guess they won't honor the shelf price if it's only a few cents? It depends on the store I think.
