Online Retailer Makes Million-Dollar Pricing Mistake

[djcoolmasterx]

An easy mistake to make with certain databases.

"UPDATE pricing SET price = 50"

 

[bison88]

I'm surprised they are actually honestly going to honor it, compare this to Dell.com that has screwed up countless times only for 24-36 hours later fire an email to those buyers saying it was wrongly priced and they could go through with the transaction if they accepted the new price.

 

[Memoscorp]

Zappos.com CEO Tweet: "$1.6 million mistake on sister site @6pm_com. I guess that means no ice cream for me tonight. Details: http/bit.ly/blfLnF"

Lol.

 

[lashton]

lol fight the orders, places like this go under because peoples greed

 

[fracture]

$1000 items for $50. Dang, I'll be putting my stuff up on eBay for a huge profit.

 

[Zenthar]

For those who wonder why this company would honor the pricing error: it might be a legal binding. Depending how they define the sale "contract", once it is formed a contract cannot be broken. If some website state that the order is considered "formed" when the order confirmation is sent ... then so be it.

 

[JD13]

Best Buy didn't honor their mistakes they just canceled your order & just brushed it under the rug.

 

[anamaniac]

Kudos on honouring the super sale.
Though if I was involved in such a mistake, and they refunded me, I'd demand compensation for my banking fees and time...

 

[xrodney]

[citation][nom]sunburn74[/nom]I don't understand why you're forced to honor pricing mistakes. I mean if you have a garage sale and leave the decimal point of something in the wrong place, I can't force you to sell it to me at that price. The seller always has the option to say "no, I don't want to sell to you". They are being really good sports to lose 1.6 million dollars over a weekend. I guess they figure avoiding the bad press would be worth the loss. Plus maybe people will feel guilty for literally robbing this company like bottom feeding thieves and will come back and buy more stuff later.[/citation]
Finishing online order is usually like signed contract and its not that easy to cancel contract. Also in many countries there are organizations or laws to protect customers. Something else would be if they just advertised with wrong price and realized before order is completed.

 

[beayn]

To maintain the publicity I'm sure they are hoping to gain from it, they could have said they would honor 1 item per order instead of the entire order. That would reduce the losses I'm sure. To take a loss of 1.6 million is nuts unless their revenue is in the billions.

 

[marybaker]

pricetrace.com can track those price trend (not only 6pm, but also many other stores)

 

[Guest]

OH MY GOD that sucks for them.

 

[zodiacfml]

that's quite a huge loss. how long was that pricing up on the site?

 

[Guest]

It's immoral and unethical for a customer to take advantage of this retailer's mistake. No, it is not illegal, but it is wrong.

 

[omnimodis78]

And now we all know there's an online retailer called 6pm.com and by the end of next week they will recover their losses and perhaps make a profit. Got to love publicity stunts!!!!

 

[Skippy27]

It's not really a "lose" when you choose to honor it on your own merits being that it is within your legal rights to cancel all orders that were priced wrong.

 

[grieve]

Thats why this pad of paper was $50, not $5!!!

This would be a good way to advertise for cheap... imagine for a monent.
Dell - set some type of limit in the background so people can only order 1 machine @ a time. place all items @ say $300-$500 and let it run for 15 mins or more (pending how fast loses occure). You may lose 1 mil but its advertising, you honor the sales to make you look like "the good guy".

Cudos to the unknown company for honoring the sales... I don't think they should have to, mistakes happen.

 

[yobigd20]

they legally don't have to honor the orders. I don't know who in their right mind would. Thats an optional $1.6 million loss. Seems really stupid to me. I think that CEO should get fired for allowing that kind of unnecessary loss for the company.

 

[eddieroolz]

What a pricing mistake. Good thing they honor it, unlike Dell.

Someone's getting fired though.

 

[aneasytarget]

Zappos is a huge online retailer, they can take the hit. Plus they get multi-millions in free publicity.