Nerdy Note: Mispriced beans

tartrazine

The price on the shelf is an advertisment. If you agree to pay the price, and the shopkeeper claims an error he can then refuse to sell the item. At this point he is aware of the error and should stop making it, i.e. remove the offending advertisement (and possibly the goods) and may re-offer them later at a correct advertised price. If the shop DOES sell you the item it must be at the price advertised on the shelf. This is why man big-name shops honour the price on the shelf in any event. Smaller concerns may fudge the issue, understandably as the cost might be high.

On a website the actions of the shopkeeper are automated by the software in the site. There is little opportunity for a person to spot an errror by chance, although software could do "sanity checks" on prices of many, possibly sophisticated, kinds.

Many sites have tried to protect themselves by fudging the issue of when the contract is made. This is understandable, but not right as it means that normal contracts, without pricing errors involved, are never made, or at least put off to the point of the goods' arrival at the customer's home. This is not what the law intended, or workable. It is similar to saying "we will finish the work when we finish the work". One can never be sure that the supplier has ever agreed to supply, or therefore have any certainty, which is what contracts are for. I would have thought that simply saying the old "E&OE" would be enough. The contract would be made, but cancelable if and when an error comes to light. Clearly £3.99 for a TV is an error, and to take advantage is almost criminal. There are always grey areas though.

The trouble is, we all secretly want an excuse for a bargain!

Corky

My understanding of pricing in shops is as follows:

When a shop is selling something, they are making an invitation to treat. This is a legal term which means that they are inviting you, the customer, to make an offer to buy that item. The price tag is a clue to the how much money they are looking for you to offer them. The key thing to remember is that they are asking you to make an offer and that means that they don't have to accept it! It therefore follows that if they price something incorrectly, they don't have to sell it at that price. Sorry, but that is just the way it is!!

Corky

christopherlondon

Gukophoto wrote: »

So, based on the first post..

They do not have to honour the price, until you have purchased the item, because no contract has been formed.
What happens if you do buy the item, and then take it to customer services etc. It is advetised at one price on the shelves and you have bought it on the pretence of this, however you have not noticed the price slip during your shopping... Now you have a contract with the seller, and they have now charged you a higher price than is advertised?

Alex

Caveat Emptor will not apply if you can demonstrate you have been deceived. It is perfectly acceptable to go back and complain having spotted the error after you have made the purchase and at the very least the shop would take the product back and refund you the dosh although I am sure you would rather have the bargain.

They may refund you the difference as a gesture of goodwill (as others have said the big ethical stores usually will honour the price) but I am sure you would have to go to court if they refused and there is no guarantee you would win if the court thinks the shopkeeper acted reasonably offering a full refund and was not trying to trick you (and others) into making a purchase. However, if they thought it was a sales scam they would be hammered by the court.

I have seen courts turn on malicious claimants and they have been made to pay costs and even compensation if the good name of a shop has been damaged by malicious allegations.

:j

MSE_Martin

Ben_Clay wrote: »

So, if you knowingly buy a tin of 40p beans from Tesco for 4p - good on yer!

What if you buy a laptop for £3.99 instead of £399 by keeping quiet at the checkout of a small town computer shop. After which the manager stops you as you are leaving the store explaining it 's a junior cashier's error. Legally right but morally? Is this one for the Money Moral Dilemma?

Yes it is - thank you for the suggestion - expect to see it as an MMD soon

CARLA-xyz

Actually, there must be circumstances where they would have to sell. For instance, last year I spent over an hour looking at kitchen cabinets door handels, difficult to decide, comparing style & prices at same time. Finally decided and picked up about 10 sets (for whole kitchen) at £2 each. But at the till they said it was an error and they should be £5 each. I said the box on the shelf clearly said £2 each and I'd spent an hour considering which handles to buy. They said, without hesitation, that I could have them at the marked price.

BlueMeany

Its quite interesting reading this.

When I worked in a shop over 20 years ago... I'm sure they had to sell at the low price (but could be wrong).

I can certainly remember that the policy was that if we were changing the price on a sticker on an item, if the price was going DOWN we could just put a new sticker over the old one... but if the price was going UP, we had to peel off the old sticker first, otherwise the customer could demand it at the lower priced sticker that was underneath.

Like I say though, this was about 23 years ago!!

Park_Ranger_2

To be honest I've never had a problem with this. In every case where I've bought something and been charged more than the shelf price the retailer has honoured the lower price. Granted these have all been for small amounts but the retail market is so competitive these days that as long as the mis-price isn't huge most will not risk losing your long term custom.

The thing that really gets me is that the supermarket I use is obsessive in ensuring that there are no gaps on their shelves. As a result they fill them with other items and so the price label on the shelf bears no relation to what's actually above it. I've been caught out a few times buying say, a loaf of bread and then finding out that the one I've bought is more expensive than than I thought. It's so bad that I'm seriously thinking of reporting them to Trading Standards for breaking the price marking regulations.

christopherlondon

Park_Ranger wrote: »

To be honest I've never had a problem with this. In every case where I've bought something and been charged more than the shelf price the retailer has honoured the lower price. Granted these have all been for small amounts but the retail market is so competitive these days that as long as the mis-price isn't huge most will not risk losing your long term custom.

The thing that really gets me is that the supermarket I use is obsessive in ensuring that there are no gaps on their shelves. As a result they fill them with other items and so the price label on the shelf bears no relation to what's actually above it. I've been caught out a few times buying say, a loaf of bread and then finding out that the one I've bought is more expensive than than I thought. It's so bad that I'm seriously thinking of reporting them to Trading Standards for breaking the price marking regulations.

I agree. What really bugs me these days is when the shop is doing a BOGOF or buy one get one half price type of offers that are so common when you look at you receipt afterwards you see it has not been recorded.

I had this with the CO-OP several times and all they say when you challenge it is "oh dear the till should pick it up automatically but they must not have updated it yet".

I did pursue it after the third time of it happening at same branch and after some exchange of emails I did get an apology and vouchers worth £25 as compensation when I was only short changed by about a £1 so that was fair.

I have to wonder if they go on the basis that when you buy a load of stuff you will not notice if the till misses a few of the specials but they deny that.

If anyone good prove that any supermarket was doing this knowingly that would really be a big case for Trading Standards. If it happened at all their branches around the UK the amounts taken could be huge.

:T

robsta_2

When i worked in retail, several of the companies i worked for had signage somewhere in the store (on the front door, above the counter, etc) stating something to the effect of 'the company retains the right to refuse service'. This offers the option to refuse to serve an individual for any reasonable reason (ie not predudicialy motivated), including rudeness/innappropriate behaviour and/or incorrect prices on products.

Its very easy to swap price stickers on products, so there has to be some rules to protect retailers.

freebiedvds

Today I went (out of my way - I normally use Sainsbury's) to Morrisons due to an ad in today's national papers offering cheap fruit & veg deals. Whole there I saw a couple of shelves of reduced bread/rolls etc with short dates. There were packs of 6 tea cakes (sticky buns) stickered from 99p down to 49p and still showed a separate sticker 'buyonegetonefree', so I pickup 2 and paid for them when I checked the receipt I had paid 2 at 49p with no discount shown. I went to the service counter to raise this to be told the 'BOGOF' did not apply to any reductions (so I'd paid 98p instead of 99p), I said 'this is not acceptable' so it went to 2 further levels of shop floor managers who still maintained that’s the rule. I said ‘you keep them and I'll take a full refund of 98p and you will have lost a potential regular customer’. He filled out a form to refund the 98p – please note that he did not take it back to a till to refund it, he could have used his form to refund the 49p for CUSTOMER GOODWILL (does anyone else remember those good old days?). Despite the fact that the apples and tomatoes were a good deal (and quality) I won’t go back to Morrisons again.