Argos - sale stock disappearing and reappearing when the sale ends!

Jessie8787

I have been tracking a large Lego set on Argos for some time. Last week a 20% sale appeared with the set I have been stalking included. Fantastic you think! Alas no stock in my area.....or any other area it seems based on the viewing and sale figures it shows to try and get you to impulse buy.

Today the sale ended and all their stock has miraculously reappeared! What a mystery!

Clearly there is not much I can do about this, but im curious what the rules are about shops advertising a product in the sale when they have hidden them in their stockroom and pretended to be out of stock. Can anyone shed some light on this?

noitsnotme

There are no laws that dictate they have to sell all their stock in a sale.  They are well within their rights to decide how many units are available at a discount price and then revert to full price after the initial allocation has sold through.

Jessie8787

Yes I suspected that might be the case. The sale figures showed they only sold 3 during the sale period - pretty poor to only make 3 available for sale.  

KatrinaWaves

Jessie8787 said:

Yes I suspected that might be the case. The sale figures showed they only sold 3 during the sale period - pretty poor to only make 3 available for sale.  

They could choose to make 0 available, so to let three people have a shot at a cheap one isn’t poor, it’s nice.

No point letting a good seller go into a sale, but it doesn’t mean they have to scrap the sale on other poorer sellers. You only noticed this item because you were watching it. There was probably tonnes of other items that didn’t go in the same either. It happens a lot with SpaceNK who do a frequent £20 off £60 offer. All the skincare I use mysteriously disappears off the site when it comes around. But there’s no obligation to put anything on sale. 

Jessie8787

Im not sure I would go so far to describe it as nice - I would describe it as misleading....

noitsnotme

Why is it misleading?  Misleading would be if they said 10 units were in the sale but then they only sold 3 at the discount price.  Unless they are saying something upfront that is untrue, there is no misleading going on.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

KatrinaWaves said:

Jessie8787 said:

Yes I suspected that might be the case. The sale figures showed they only sold 3 during the sale period - pretty poor to only make 3 available for sale.  

They could choose to make 0 available, so to let three people have a shot at a cheap one isn’t poor, it’s nice.

No point letting a good seller go into a sale, but it doesn’t mean they have to scrap the sale on other poorer sellers. You only noticed this item because you were watching it. There was probably tonnes of other items that didn’t go in the same either. It happens a lot with SpaceNK who do a frequent £20 off £60 offer. All the skincare I use mysteriously disappears off the site when it comes around. But there’s no obligation to put anything on sale. 

I'm sure running a sale on zero items available would be classed as misleading, difficult to prove or get anyone to do anything about it but given the EU Directive on misleading actions states any action which may alter the economic behaviour of the consumer can be deemed misleading I don't think it would be hard to argue that offering a sale of something that effectively doesn't exist isn't misleading. 

KatrinaWaves

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

KatrinaWaves said:

Jessie8787 said:

Yes I suspected that might be the case. The sale figures showed they only sold 3 during the sale period - pretty poor to only make 3 available for sale.  

They could choose to make 0 available, so to let three people have a shot at a cheap one isn’t poor, it’s nice.

No point letting a good seller go into a sale, but it doesn’t mean they have to scrap the sale on other poorer sellers. You only noticed this item because you were watching it. There was probably tonnes of other items that didn’t go in the same either. It happens a lot with SpaceNK who do a frequent £20 off £60 offer. All the skincare I use mysteriously disappears off the site when it comes around. But there’s no obligation to put anything on sale. 

I'm sure running a sale on zero items available would be classed as misleading, difficult to prove or get anyone to do anything about it but given the EU Directive on misleading actions states any action which may alter the economic behaviour of the consumer can be deemed misleading I don't think it would be hard to argue that offering a sale of something that effectively doesn't exist isn't misleading. 

Zero of the item the OP wants. The rest of the site, mostly, was on sale. 

eddddy

FWIW, there are lots of 'secret' agreements between suppliers and retailers hidden behind these kind of offers.

For example, the retailer might say to the supplier "We want to do a big 20% off promotion of your products with lots of advertising - but you have to supply stock to us with a 20% discount."

So the retailer might only sell stock at 20% off which is sold to them at a 20% discount. They might 'hide away' any older stock that they had to pay full price for.

(It's a similar arrangement with 'Buy one, get one free deals' in supermarkets. The supermarket typically arranges to pay the supplier less for products going into a bogof promotion.)

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

KatrinaWaves said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

KatrinaWaves said:

Jessie8787 said:

Yes I suspected that might be the case. The sale figures showed they only sold 3 during the sale period - pretty poor to only make 3 available for sale.  

They could choose to make 0 available, so to let three people have a shot at a cheap one isn’t poor, it’s nice.

No point letting a good seller go into a sale, but it doesn’t mean they have to scrap the sale on other poorer sellers. You only noticed this item because you were watching it. There was probably tonnes of other items that didn’t go in the same either. It happens a lot with SpaceNK who do a frequent £20 off £60 offer. All the skincare I use mysteriously disappears off the site when it comes around. But there’s no obligation to put anything on sale. 

I'm sure running a sale on zero items available would be classed as misleading, difficult to prove or get anyone to do anything about it but given the EU Directive on misleading actions states any action which may alter the economic behaviour of the consumer can be deemed misleading I don't think it would be hard to argue that offering a sale of something that effectively doesn't exist isn't misleading. 

Zero of the item the OP wants. The rest of the site, mostly, was on sale. 

I understand, what I'm saying is to include a high ticket item in a sale to draw customers in without any actually being available would be classed as misleading. 

noitsnotme

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

KatrinaWaves said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

KatrinaWaves said:

Jessie8787 said:

Yes I suspected that might be the case. The sale figures showed they only sold 3 during the sale period - pretty poor to only make 3 available for sale.  

They could choose to make 0 available, so to let three people have a shot at a cheap one isn’t poor, it’s nice.

No point letting a good seller go into a sale, but it doesn’t mean they have to scrap the sale on other poorer sellers. You only noticed this item because you were watching it. There was probably tonnes of other items that didn’t go in the same either. It happens a lot with SpaceNK who do a frequent £20 off £60 offer. All the skincare I use mysteriously disappears off the site when it comes around. But there’s no obligation to put anything on sale. 

I'm sure running a sale on zero items available would be classed as misleading, difficult to prove or get anyone to do anything about it but given the EU Directive on misleading actions states any action which may alter the economic behaviour of the consumer can be deemed misleading I don't think it would be hard to argue that offering a sale of something that effectively doesn't exist isn't misleading. 

Zero of the item the OP wants. The rest of the site, mostly, was on sale. 

I understand, what I'm saying is to include a high ticket item in a sale to draw customers in without any actually being available would be classed as misleading. 

I'd agree if there was never any available at the discounted price in the first place, but once the sale items are sold out then there is nothing misleading in showing no stock left.  The sale would have been programmed in to their system to run over a set time for a set number of units - if they sell out in that set time period they will show as zero stock until the end of the sale period.