Tesco offer latest iPad for £49

how can 659 become 49? not even a missed digit or a single digit typo.

I love the way it is deemed an 'it fault' that someone stuck the wrong price on - that's not an IT faults, its a data entry fault, or human error as it used to be known!
 
Free advertising , the law needs changing so they have to honour it, then they'd stop doing it, like Argos selling a £500 lens they don't even stock at a huge discount so it's at he top of the camera price buster list , try finding one
 
wack61 said:
Free advertising , the law needs changing so they have to honour it, then they'd stop doing it, like Argos selling a £500 lens they don't even stock at a huge discount so it's at he top of the camera price buster list , try finding one
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Which is fine for a company like Tesco or Argos, but if a little company makes a genuine error it could wipe them out in a single day. I know the obvious response to that is "so just make sure you do it properly", but mistakes happen, it's human nature. If that last '9' falls off the price in a car window at a small dealership, somebody takes a picture and insists on buying it at that price you've potentially bankrupted a company in a few seconds.

You also then open bricks and mortar stores up to 'price adjusting', where the 'less honest' people of this world modify price tags and take them to the till.
 
all is not so well there anyway -

"Tesco's UK Chief Quits Over Poor Sales"

"Sky News city editor Mark Kleinman, who exclusively revealed the move last night, said: "What this all adds up to is a sign that all is not well at Tesco, which has really been the dominant force in British retailing for the last 15 years."
 
The Hut Group always pulling "pricing error" stunts that get hundreds of people on HUKD excited so they order, then get knocked back, then get a 5-10% voucher code as an apology to which the customer just has to take up and voila The Hut Groups sales are well up that week...
 
wack61 said:
Free advertising , the law needs changing so they have to honour it, then they'd stop doing it, like Argos selling a £500 lens they don't even stock at a huge discount so it's at he top of the camera price buster list , try finding one
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Very valid point, never though of it that way
 
Are you allowed to sell something you don't stock? (excluding pre-ordering before a release). I'm sure that wasn't allowed or maybe I'm thinking of something else?
 
articles a bit old, this happened at the beginning of the week :)

knowing how easy it is to submit an incorrect price to an online store, i dont think its a marketing ploy. lets face it tesco are not desperate for traffic to their site..

simon44 said:
Amazon would have :love:
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you reckon? quote amazon t&c - "If a product's correct price is higher than our stated price, we will, at our discretion, either contact you for instructions before dispatch or cancel your order and notify you of such cancellation."

gman said:
Are you allowed to sell something you don't stock? (excluding pre-ordering before a release). I'm sure that wasn't allowed or maybe I'm thinking of something else?
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not that im aware of. geniune stocking errors can and do happen, or do you mean something else?
 
I think I'm thinking of when someone has an item for sale that they never stock but wait for someone to order and pay and only then do they go and source it from their supplier and then send it on. I'm sure this sort of thing isn't allowed? Can't remember though.
 
Tesco made a mistake, these things happen. There's nothing to suggest that they intended to deceive or mislead anyone, and I can't see how it could be a marketing ploy. How many people would place an order at £49, and just shrug and say 'Oh well, I'll pay the full price' when they were told it should have been £659?

I don't agree that sellers should be compelled to honour advertised prices, when they have made a genuine mistake, either. That's a bit of a minefield.
 
Not sure I agree with all this conspiracy theory.
Tesco are hardly likely to want to generate so much traffic to their website that it crashes as lets face it when they are responsible for relieving us of £1 in every £10 spent in the UK, a few Ipad sales are small change to them.
Mistakes do happen !
As for this honouring mistakes - wouldnt you want to be able to decline a sale due to a mistake that would probably cost you in the region of £400 per unit? Get real! There are too many vultures around! Lets face it they'd be back on ebay in minutes at £500 !
 
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Overexposed said:
Not sure I agree with all this conspiracy theory.
Tesco are hardly likely to want to generate so much traffic to their website that it crashes as lets face it when they are responsible for relieving us of £1 in every £10 spent in the UK, a few Ipad sales are small change to them.
Mistakes do happen !
As for this honouring mistakes - wouldnt you want to be able to decline a sale due to a mistake that would probably cost you in the region of £400 per unit? Get real! There are too many vultures around! Lets face it they'd be back on ebay in minutes at £500 !
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to be honest i doubt that would happen, i know what platform they use and its extremely hardcore. they also get preferential treatment on bandwidth resources (albeit unofficially, if you ask the provider they deny it), have their own huge dedicated servers etc.
 
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gman said:
I think I'm thinking of when someone has an item for sale that they never stock but wait for someone to order and pay and only then do they go and source it from their supplier and then send it on. I'm sure this sort of thing isn't allowed? Can't remember though.
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dont think so, some company ship stock straight from their supplier.

dabs is another good one, some memory i ordered from them just happened to have a scan.co.uk warehouse barcode and product details stuck to it.. :thinking:
 
Perhaps it's private sales I'm thinking of? I'm sure there's something, damn my memory! lol
 
wack61 said:
Free advertising , the law needs changing so they have to honour it, then they'd stop doing it, like Argos selling a £500 lens they don't even stock at a huge discount so it's at he top of the camera price buster list , try finding one
Click to expand...

How about if someone advertises a excellent condition 300/2.8 L in the classifieds for £150 instead of £1500, should they also be obliged in law to sell to the first person to spot it?

No they shouldn't, and nor should shops that accidentally misprice items. Advertising, be it on the internet, on a shop shelf or wherever is an "invitation to treat", it is not a formal offer of binding contract.

There are laws in place to prevent this being done deliberately (consumer protection act 1987) already, which can lead to fines of up to £5000 for each customer mislead.
 
neil_g said:
to be honest i doubt that would happen, i know what platform they use and its extremely hardcore. they also get preferential treatment on bandwidth resources (albeit unofficially, if you ask the provider they deny it), have their own huge dedicated servers etc.
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It was on the news Tuesday that the Ipad pricing mistake had crashed the Tesco website!
 
Overexposed said:
It was on the news Tuesday that the Ipad pricing mistake had crashed the Tesco website!
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id take that with a pinch of salt to be honest. like i say tesco are very well equipped to deal with very high volumes of traffic. so the site may have lagged a little so it didnt load for a few reporters.. we certainly didnt see any bandwidth issues surrounding the providers platform (same reason why all customers on the platform are supposed to announce their intent to start an online sale, so that bandwidth can be provisioned).

i like the way tesco are blaming an "IT error" too. um, how do those prices get into the system.. via a systems weakest link, the human.
 
onomatopoeia said:
How about if someone advertises a excellent condition 300/2.8 L in the classifieds for £150 instead of £1500, should they also be obliged in law to sell to the first person to spot it?

No they shouldn't, and nor should shops that accidentally misprice items. Advertising, be it on the internet, on a shop shelf or wherever is an "invitation to treat", it is not a formal offer of binding contract.

There are laws in place to prevent this being done deliberately (consumer protection act 1987) already, which can lead to fines of up to £5000 for each customer mislead.
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That's the real problem with trying to compel sellers to honour prices. It drives a coach and horses through the whole principle of offer to treat/acceptance of the offer, and could be used to nail anyone for making a simple mistake. It's an offence to deliberately mislead customers, but there are separate penalties for that.
 
MartynK said:
That's the real problem with trying to compel sellers to honour prices. It drives a coach and horses through the whole principle of offer to treat/acceptance of the offer, and could be used to nail anyone for making a simple mistake. It's an offence to deliberately mislead customers, but there are separate penalties for that.
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Last time Tesco had a pricing error (that I remember) they acknowledged the error and were cancelling order over 48 hours before correcting the price.

Apparently this was deemed reasonable by the ASA - so correcting a mistake as soon as it is recognised is no longer necessary nor deliberately misleading
 
Correct. Deliberately advertising a very low price with the intention of deceiving or misleading customers, and encouraging them to come to your store to create opportunities for up selling, is a completely different matter. This was recognised long before the Consumer Protection Act came into force.
 
neil_g said:
dont think so, some company ship stock straight from their supplier.

dabs is another good one, some memory i ordered from them just happened to have a scan.co.uk warehouse barcode and product details stuck to it.. :thinking:
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Indeed they do. Plasma TVs are a prime example as they have to be handled very carefully so they go straight from manufacturer to customer.
 
Starastin said:
"Tesco's UK Chief Quits Over Poor Sales"

"Sky News city editor Mark Kleinman, who exclusively revealed the move last night, said: "What this all adds up to is a sign that all is not well at Tesco, which has really been the dominant force in British retailing for the last 15 years."
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someguyfromtesco said:
Tesco has failed to revive sales despite spending £500m on price cuts.
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I'd have to say, what price cuts? as far as I can see most food items are 50-100% more expensive than they were a year ago, electrical items can nearly always be bought elsewhere cheaper too.
The great bogof ripoff and other marketing nasties is what is costing them the business, treating the customer like cattle doesn't help.
 
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