Be careful in Halfords Sale

markpinetree

Saw a car radio for £29.99 in their sale last night on their website, the website would not reserve the product (even though it said that we could do that) at the Hayes branch (all other branches required ordering over night but Hayes had that and many other discount models "in stock" for normal purchase. So we went down to Hayes today to find that the product was now price at £39.99 online and could only be bought over the counter at £59.99. The staff wouldn't let us reserve it online from their screens at first, but gave in after much pleading and guess what, the system would not allow us to reserve one over the internet from their store/ Furthermore, it was now saying that it would be Monday before we could collect one from the store there (if we paid over the internet which we could not do from the store terminal as the assistant said it was "not policy") even though they had the product in stock there. The staff were surprised that we had been unable to reserve the products from collection in their store. Went home very disappointed and surprised how all the products in the sale (both those stocked in range in the store, and ex-display had gone up by a minimum of £10 or much more for the ex-display stuff. Going to their website at 20:40 on getting home all the ex-display bargains had disappeared on the website and all the sale items had gone "web exclusive" requiring purchase over the internet and days before you could collect them from stores that had them in stock today.
Therefore, caveat emptor, the Halfords Sale has put its prices up overnight, disabled the reservation and collect feature for many products, and are playing some sort of game with the truth about actual stock levels in their branches. Suggest waiting a few days until the prices go down to levels they were at yesterday (July 4th) as they have been artificially hyped overnight, perhaps for the weekend?
I will add that the staff at the Hayes branch were very nice and helpful (Bogdan and team) and were doing their best within the constraints of the IT system.

Update as of Saturday 13th July 2013
I found the car stereo that I was trying to buy last week "In stock" at a local branch of Halfords and even though it was marked as a "web exclusive" I was able to reserve it via the "reserve and collect" feature of the web-site, though not entirely easily: the reservation number did not shown up on screen and was e-mailed to my address, though that e-mail never arrived. I finally managed to get at the reservation number by printing the reservation confirmation page where the reservation number does appear (or rather I noted the number off the print preview screen without printing the page off). The store had the item in stock, though the process of getting it was not obvious and somewhat chaotic when there. So I saved £20 by reserving it via the website for £39.95 and collecting and paying for it in store using the reservation number rather than just walking in and paying £59.95 in the actual store for the off-the-shelf product..

20th July 2013 Saturday
Received an e-mail from Halfords with a customer satisfaction survey regarding this purchase which I duly completed (though declined to participate in further satisfaction interviews). What this does prove is that I entered my e-mail correctly into their system when making the reservation so what happened to the reservation order number e-mail that the system said it sent to me but which never made it to my e-mail?

Mark.

paddyrg

Might be a conspiracy, might be a !!!!-up. The latter is more likely tbh, but I can see how frustrating you found it

arcon5

So they probably bought a cheap bulk batch from the manufacturer and allocated x stock per region and now running low in certain areas.

Certainly seems the norm.

ThumbRemote

arcon5 wrote: »

So they probably bought a cheap bulk batch from the manufacturer and allocated x stock per region and now running low in certain areas.

Certainly seems the norm.

Halfords usually allow an online reserve and collect. OP is saying this isn't working, items are showing out of stock in particular stores even though they are in stock. As a result you have to order online for delivery to a store, then collect a few days later.

mattyprice4004

It all boils down to the fact they may want to sell it for £29.99 online and a tenner more in store.

They're allowed to do that.

spacey2012

The store near where I am at present has weeds growing in front of the door, I thought it was closed, it is like a seance inside.

ThumbRemote

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

It all boils down to the fact they may want to sell it for £29.99 online and a tenner more in store.

They're allowed to do that.

That's not what the OP said.