Misselling a reduced item as part of a promotion

simonlid

Hi all,

I'm after some opinions and thoughts on something that happened today.

I bought a pair of shoes from a well-known chain of shoe shops - when I presented them at the counter the assistant told me the good news that the shoes were part of a promotion in which they would be reduced if I buy a can of protection spray, and the total price would be slightly cheaper than the shoes alone.

Sounded good to me so I did just that.

Later on when checking the receipt, there was no indication of a discount being applied, although the shoes were at the cheaper price. The thing that struck me as odd about this was that he scanned the shoes first and they still showed up on the receipt at the reduced price. So went on their website, and sure enough, the shoes are actually priced at the cheaper price and the box simply showed the old price!

While I've still got the shoes cheaper than I expected when I first decided to buy them, the way the clerk tricked me into buying an additional item has struck me as odd, and a bit sneaky if I'm honest!

I wouldn't have thought this sort of practice was allowed, is it? In this particular case, it's only a matter of a few pounds but I wonder how many people have been caught out the same way, and whether the company itself would be aware of it.

Just after any thoughts on this and what would you do in this situation?

Thanks!
Simon

tomwakefield

You'll be hard pressed to prove what the salesman said and, if he denies it, it'll be your word against his.

Is there any kind of seal on the can that you have to remove before use? If so, and you haven't used it, you could try taking it back. If not, you could still give it a go, but I personally wouldn't bother, as it'll get used eventually anyway.

CoolHotCold

Depends on the wording.

From what it sounds, it sounds like the ticket/price on the box/shelf said X amount, but the till said Y amount.

The Assistant is probably targeted on how many shoe spray cans he can attach in a day, and thought "Whey, easy"


At the end of the day, it isn't their job to tell you to go online and find the cheapest prices, or even tell you what it scans in at.

You offered to buy it at X price, and you would of been happy instead you purchased it at Y price + Shoe Spray which is less than X price.

If you shop around after buying a item, thats usually the wrong way to do things and leads to disappointment.


Anyway, if the assistant said, "You can purchase the shoes on their own at the ticket/sticker price, or you can purchase them with the shoe spray can which actually works out cheaper".

It's all down to the delivery of the speech.

The other thing the assistant could of done is just increased the cost of the shoes to the ticket/sticker price.

Valli

Some companies have two different price structures; one for in store and another for on line.