Next, the high street giant, have been left with very red faces after a pair of sofas worth £1198 were listed on the website for only £98. online shoppers went mad when they spotted the blunder, which knocked £1100 off the sofas instead of the intended discount of £100. bargain hunters flocked to grab the deal and those who bought them also received confirmation emails which gave them estimated dates of delivery.
The price error, which went for 6 hours uncorrected, was spotted by the keen eyed users of consumer websites such as moneysavingexpert and Hotukdeals. Online shoppers have reported that they bought the two Rochelle sofas for £98, plus delivery, and the money had left their bank accounts, leaving those buyers believing they had nabbed the deal of the century.
Other consumers said on the Hotukdeals website that they had rushed onto the Next website to try and grab this deal, describes as a ‘glitch lottery’. Many, however, doubted that the chain would actually honour this huge discrepancy in price, which amounted to more that £1000. It turns out that they were right, and Next have disappointed those shoppers who thought they had grabbed a massive bargain.
The retailer is relying on the small print in its terms and conditions that states they are allowed to cancel any order before they have been despatched. Once Next discovered the error it was quickly rectified, and the retailer has said that they will be contacting all those customers involved to tell them their orders wouldn’t be fulfilled.
The company also said that they have consulted with Trading Standards and that they were well within their rights to cancel the order at anytime prior to it being dispatched. A Next spokesman said that for few hours, a sofa option was offered at the wrong price on both their transactional website and their telephone ordering system. This was a genuine and very unfortunate error, that they corrected as quickly as possible.
He went to say that they had discussed the matter with their local Trading Standards office about the best way to deal with those orders which had been placed while the sofas were wrongly priced, and that according to their standars t’s & c’s, they were able to reserve the right to cancel those orders as they were prior to dispatch.
He added that they were contacting all the customers involved, and would be explaining that unfortunately they would not be fulfilling their orders. They were very sorry for both the disappointment and inconvenience caused by this error. As you can imagine, the consumer websites are buzzing with questions and comments from disgruntled buyers who believe that Next are in the wrong by not honouring their mistake.
Several posted comments on moneysavingexpert.co.uk asking if they had any legal comeback, while many wondered when they were going to get their money back. If it had been honoured, it would have been one of the costliest pricing errors ever. The last one, which admittedly was nowhere near the Next one, was a glitch that had Terry’s Chocolate Oranges going through the tills at Tesco for 29p instead of £2.75.
