Bedstar - Deceptive Price 'Promise'

Tim_Deegan

jdturk wrote: »

Probably not but they have not broke their terms and conditions so there is not alot I can do and I wouldn't be that fussed about it as I would be able to get that bed for that price anyway

Not if you had already ordered it.

Tim_Deegan

vyle wrote: »

Surely the shop is just saying "We promise to match a price, so long as we're not losing money," which is fair enough imo.

They're not taking a non-refundable deposit, they're not stopping people buying elsewhere - the consumer takes their chance to wait or not.

It's not an unconditional promise. And like someone else said, it's not like they'll be getting regular repeat business, or have much else they can sell to build up the sale to make it worthwhile.

People who are saying that them losing a sale in this climate is very bad are missing an important point that in this case, not making a sale would be worse financially than no sale.

If you buy a car for 500 and sell it for 510 you have made £10 profit. If someone wants it for 450 you're effectively giving them the car, plus £50 of your own money. In this case it'd be better to keep it and still have the car to sell later on.

If the company did sell at a loss, then OP may tell people about how great their price promise is, but it's only going to invite people to run them into the ground.

Where I work right now, we're matching the price of Wiis at a loss, but as a result, we've created a bundle of games which saves the customer a small amount of money but drives the margin up to make a profit overall. It's not like a bed shop can really do that due to the nature of their business.

Believe me they wouldn't be making a loss. You don't realise the huge mark up that most bed retailers add. They may not be making as big a profit, but they would still be making a profit. Otherwise the other seller wouldn't have been able to sell at their price.

Tim_Deegan

jdturk wrote: »

There are reasons why a company can sell at a low price

1) Loss leader
2) Jobbing out old stock
3) Error on the system


That's three of the top of my head

Yes I do know that, I'm in the trade remember. Although mattresses don't tend to be used as loss leaders.

As I said, the mark up on mattresses is so huge that even if they did price match, they would still make a profit.

Tim_Deegan

jdturk wrote: »

Then why would the other seller not be able to sell at that price then?

They are. That's the whole point of the thread. If the other seller can sell at their price, then they must be making a profit.

Tim_Deegan

jdturk wrote: »

So what is your definition of a loss leader then?

A loss leader is a product that the retailer is willing to make a loss on in order to attract customers to their store in order to sell other products at a profit. Mattresses aren't usually used as loss leaders by bed retailers as most people don't tend to buy more than one mattress at a time. However large on line stores like Tesco might use a mattress as a loss leader because they sell loads of other products that the customer may be interested in.

Tim_Deegan

jdturk wrote: »

my point was that companies could sell a bed as a loss leader and hence why other companies would not want to price match....granted unlikely

It would be commercial suicide for a bed company to sell mattresses as a loss leader.

Tim_Deegan

jdturk wrote: »

I agree but as you point out Tescos could afford to and if the company had to price match they would be stuffed....hence why they have the get out clause

That's why price matching is bad for the whole industry. Retailers shouldn't promise if they can't follow it through. Price matching is often a sign of desperation from a company making a last ditched attempt to get more sales. However what often happens is that they start a price war which leads to companies going bust.

As for the supermarkets, they normally disguise a loss leader as a miss price, and so they wouldn't count as a comparrison for a true price match.

Equaliser123

I think the bottom line here is that Bedstar have been distinctly underhand (at best) and have utterly misrepresented the position.

Legally - very challengable.