Argos is know for doing things cheap, but last week it surprised even its customers when it appeared to be offering televisions on sale for 49p each on its Web site. Not surprisingly, many Argos customers — few of whom would knowingly pass up on a deal — took advantage on the offer.
Some of those customers may have got the feeling they were watching a repeat of an episode six years ago when Argos priced a £299 television set at £2.99. Not quite the 49p bargain we saw last week, but it still caused a great deal of consternation among angry and self-righteous customers who thought they were entitled to the goods they had had paid for.
The mistake may have been the same, but Argos learnt from that early error. Back in 1999, the terms and conditions on the Argos Web site contained a catalogue of errors, and the contractual steps were not set out at all clearly all. Customers therefore felt entitled to the goods at the price offered, and their indignation was raised to boiling point when Argos tried to argue. This time, customers may well be indignant, but Argos need only point to its terms and conditions — which customers must confirm that they have read and agreed to before proceeding with a purchase.
In its Ts&Cs, Argos states clearly that completion of the contract between it and a customer will take place on despatch of the products and not before. It's really very simple stuff. Yet even all the publicity surrounding Argos and other big brands selling online — not even Dell and Kodak are immune to letting a decimal point slip through in the wrong place, some still continue to get it spectacularly wrong.
Only recently, says Outlaw.com, one large site tried to cancel orders for Sony Vaio laptops that it mistakenly sold for £2 with woefully inadequate terms and conditions.
In an age where phishing and ID fraud are also taking their toll on online shopping, the last thing that online retailers need is even more damage done to trust in e-commerce. Major e-tailers must redouble their efforts to get things right all the time.
Talkback
It is true that there are errors in advertising and as in newspapers a retraction or correction is used to correct it. Online should have the same rules and until the final contract is checked for shipping and pricing errors you should not get your hopes up that an unbelievable price is just that.
Quite frankly I believe that if anyone that bought one of these TVs genuinely thought that Argos would happily give away a TV worth several hundred punsd for forty nine pence, then they should give up the money they "lost" in stupidity tax!