Thanks Mark for putting some sanity back into this thread. Bill wants to argue like this is some 2 dollar item picked off of the store shelf. I think the situation changes with the price of the item and in the virtual store. Regards, Bob S.
On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Mark Roberts <m...@robertstech.com> wrote: > William Robb wrote: > >>I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a >>quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is >>clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore >>you will have to pay double, would you do so happily? >>If you'd care to, answer me this time. >> >>In essence, this is what B&H has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and >>(most unfortunately) Henry is defending. > > Bill, you're equating a physical store with a virtual store. There > seems to be a tacit assumption that online stores can or should > work just like physical stores. This is, in and of itself, untrue. > They don't. They can't. They shouldn't. > > Here's how a mis-priced item is handled in a physical store: You sell > the product to the customer for the price marked and eat the loss. > That's the right thing to do and it's also the law in many places (it > was in New York State when I lived there). Then you go back onto the > sales floor and correct the price. This isn't viable in an online > store because in the time it takes to ring up the sale and walk back > to the sales area of the physical store the customer in the virtual > store has announced his bargain through Twitter, Facebook, Woot, etc. > and the mis-priced product has been ordered by 100 other people. Or > 200. Or 800. B&H's servers can probably handle several hundred orders > a *minute*. Consider an expensive item that's not underpriced by a > mere 50% but with a mis-placed decimal point (it's been known to > happen) that effectively underprices it by 90%... and is ordered by > 1000 or so people before the mistake is discovered. Consider a web > site that's been hacked and products re-priced: If the law treated any > of these like a physical store, they'd be obliged to sell everything > at the marked price until they noticed and fixed each erroneous price > (good luck "proving" it was hackers who did it - or, if you're an > aggrieved customer, proving that hackers *didn't* do it when the > seller claims that was the case). > > Mark Cassino's web page was hacked not long ago - they were trying to > upload trojans to site visitors but they could just as easily have > re-priced everything he sells. > > Are there any online retailers who *do* guarantee that they'll sell > for the price that's advertised in their online store even if it's an > error? Find one. I haven't been able to. Look at the places that offer > to match competitors' prices (buy.com, for example): They specifically > state that they'll only match *correct* prices - they know *none* > of their competitors will actually sell at an erroneous price, and > they know pricing errors are a realistic possibility so they want to > be protected, too. > > The marking of a price on an item on the shelf of a physical store > carries with it a kind of contractual obligation between the store and > the customer. The advertised price in a virtual store, on the other > hand, is treated as "informational" like the price in a printed > advertisement; subject to change or retraction in the case of errors. > > Many practices that work in the physical world don't scale to the > speed, volume and security threats of the online environment. As far > as I can tell there are *no* online retailers who promise to sell for > the price advertised on the web site even if it's wrong. This is one > of the policies that simply isn't workable in the virtual world. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
