Sale items unavailable

Quattro_d

Would someone help me understand this please?

Currys have the Fuji X-T3 camera and 16-80 f4.0 lens on sale for about £1650 normally.  On two occasions I have seen it discounted (once in the run up to Christmas and again at present).  In each of these instances they immediately make it unavailable.  In the run up to Christmas I even subscribed to their email service, which promised to let me know when it was back in stock.  That mail only came once the discount ended and stock miraculously reappeared.  Is this not, at best immoral and at worst some breach of the retail trading regulations?

Thank you

Aylesbury_Duck

I'm not sure it's either. What do they gain from not selling any?  I suspect they have very limited stock at that price and you're being beaten to it.

Quattro_d

I figure it's a way of attracting folks to their site? On subscribing to the email service promising to inform of the item becoming available, one is sent suggestions of other similar options that one may want to consider.  I will be very surprised if stock does not reappear on the day this offer ends.  No biggie, just wondering if it was something that should not really be allowed.

Thanks for taking the time.

Spank

It could be the same bot software that's buying the console's 

Pollycat

Aylesbury_Duck said:

I'm not sure it's either. What do they gain from not selling any?  I suspect they have very limited stock at that price and you're being beaten to it.

I get emails from SportsDirect (yes, I know...sorry ) and in the last few weeks they've been having flash sales with items as cheap as 10p.

When you click on an item, you get a 404 error which they say means items are out of stock. I guess it's probable that someone in the know within SD are bagging bargains before the emails go out.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's happening here - at least the OP being beaten to the few items available by faster customers.

Bradden

Why not just complain to the ASA?

Sandtree

Quattro_d said:
In each of these instances they immediately make it unavailable.

How immediately?

I cannot say for Currys for certain but the BBC article this morning on the PS5 supply issues pointed out that Argos update stock position at 2am each morning and given many of these big company websites are driven off the back of batch processing central systems I wouldnt be surprised if this wasnt the norm. 

Were you getting the email at 10am and checking at 11am when you got time? In which case the 3-5 units that may have been marked down to that price could have sold hours ago. There is no law against having limited stock at a marked down price and some are more tech savvy than others to catch the price movements as soon as websites are updated.

MattMattMattUK

Pollycat said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

I'm not sure it's either. What do they gain from not selling any?  I suspect they have very limited stock at that price and you're being beaten to it.

I get emails from SportsDirect (yes, I know...sorry ) and in the last few weeks they've been having flash sales with items as cheap as 10p.

When you click on an item, you get a 404 error which they say means items are out of stock. I guess it's probable that someone in the know within SD are bagging bargains before the emails go out.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's happening here - at least the OP being beaten to the few items available by faster customers.

The emails generally go out over a period of several hours, chances are you are not in the first few, so the items have all been snapped up by those who got the emails first. 

Pollycat

MattMattMattUK said:

The emails generally go out over a period of several hours, chances are you are not in the first few, so the items have all been snapped up by those who got the emails first. 

Maybe that's what the OP is experiencing rather than Currys behaving immorally or breaching the retail trading regulations.

davidmcn

Advertising stuff which was genuinely never available is an advertising/trading standards breach, yes (I think in the past places like travel agents have been prosecuted for non-existent deals in their windows), but they only need to have, say, one item at the cheap price to get round that. As above, you may just not be quick enough.

unholyangel

davidmcn said:

Advertising stuff which was genuinely never available is an advertising/trading standards breach, yes (I think in the past places like travel agents have been prosecuted for non-existent deals in their windows), but they only need to have, say, one item at the cheap price to get round that. As above, you may just not be quick enough.

It's actually not as simple as having one item available at the cheap price and it's not just advertising you have a complaint under but unfair trading practices. 

They're supposed to have enough stock to meet demand. Aka can't advertise a price nationally when they only have a few units available. 

https://www.hants.gov.uk/business/tradingstandards/consumeradvice/goodsandservices/pricinglaw