tkbslc wrote in post #17034124
Okay, fine, you hit a 5 instead of 8 and you realize after the seller has paid you that they only gave you $1500 and you were expecting $1800. Do you ship the lens or do you refund their money?
Depends on my store policies I have drafted for online transactions. The answer is different if I have a store, because I would have to have policies for both customers and my establishment to follow. If my policies are clear about pricing errors, and how I remedy it (and most likely I would have some sort of coupon or discount code I would issue, things like that), I would follow that. Also as a business, you have to be very, very careful about your advertised specials. You don't just fat finger an amount, you would checks and balances in place to make sure the specials you post are documented and reviewed. If a mistake still makes it through, you don't make the consumer pay for it, you change your policies and procedures internally to make sure they don't happen again.
As a private seller, I have more options available, because I don't have any terms to adhere to, I don't have to follow consumer and FTC laws, and I don't have sales in volume to make up costs where there are misadvertised prices. As a private seller, I would indeed back out for that large an amount. A business has much more responsibility to establish business practices, and clearly advertise them, but also needs to keep their customer base, or potential customer base, happy with some incentives and guarantees.
Interestingly, I am both. I buy and sell privately for my hobbies, but also have an online store where I manufacture and sell Invisicords and related products/custom projects. I have had to eat all kinds of costs, due to my own mistakes (not pricing but many others that are just as silly), as well as issues on part of my customers. At the end of the year, it just becomes part of my P&L statements for taxes. I lose about 8-12% due to mistakes and consumer whimsical decisions each year, and that adds up to about $1600-2400 missed revenue a year just for that. It doesn't feel good, but is part of doing business. You adjust accordingly.
Also to add to my experience, my wife was a store/regional manager for a very large shoe chain, and I was very aware of their policies as well to pricing mistakes. The standard rule was that if there was a pricing error, you honored that price for the sales already made, but you quickly corrected it, or took something down until it could be corrected to stem the loss. If there were pending sales where money had not yet changed hands, you would explain and remedy the mistake, and would not honor the erroneous price, unless the customer was a jerk and pushed the issue. One very irate customer about a bad deal could cost you much more later than a single loss on a sale to that customer.
In this particular case, you advertised a $299 item for $255, and somebody bought it. You honor the price and correct the sale price for other customers. You don't cancel the sale, refund the money, and just say "sorry". That at the very minimum is poor customer service. I am not sure if Henry still frequents these boards for B&H or not, but if so, I am sure he, like Helen does for Adorama, will address this in one way or another.
