Wickes advertising possibly non existent deal

CornishDIYer

I saw what I thought was a brilliant offer in a Wickes advert in a football programme for a match on 17 December. Wickes’ own brand combi drill with two batteries reduced from £99.99 to £49.99. By the time I got around to checking the offer on line on 20 December there was no trace of it. I emailed Wickes’ customer services and was asked to send a scan of the advert which I did. The response was that Wickes reserved the right to withdraw an offer at any time. I asked when this offer had been withdrawn but received no further response.

The questions in my mind:
Can a company advertise an offer that did not ever exist?
Should an offer exist at the time the publication is issued?
Is it reasonable for an offer to be withdrawn within a couple of days of being advertised?

Of course I do not know when the offer was withdrawn and I may be wrongly accusing Wickes but if they do not want to answer my question I have to assume that the offer did not exist at the time of publication. Has anyone else had problems with unavailable super deals from Wickes?

Fosterdog

Using web archive to look back at wickes, the drill you are talking about was certainly down to £49.99 in October

https://web.archive.org/web/20161013025303/http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-18V-Li-ion-Cordless-Combi-Drill-with-2-Batteries/p/141178

There no more recent archives but there is a good chance you saw it advertised in the last few days of the offer and missed out on the deal.

daytona0

Do you mean this one?

http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-18V-Li-ion-Cordless-Combi-Drill-with-2-Batteries/p/141178


If so, having a look at archives shows that Wickes had it on offer for £49.99 on October 13th 2016. They don't appear to have a more recent listing.

http://web.archive.org/web/20161013025303/http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-18V-Li-ion-Cordless-Combi-Drill-with-2-Batteries/p/141178

1. So first of all the offer DID exist at some point in time

2. The offer may well have existed at the time of the publication, but you checked it a few days later so who knows

3. They can withdraw their offer at any time, and have no obligation to sell it to you.

Just seems like you were a bit too slow on this occasion I'm afraid