So You Made An Online Pricing Mistake

First of all, I don't want to belittle the mistake.  It's a big one.  And it doesn't matter if it's ten cents or ten thousand dollars. A wrong price is a wrong price. If you don't believe it, ask the person that's buying it.  Or think back to a time when it happened to you.

It Happens All The Time

According to the research guys, 1 in 10 stores ring up sales at the wrong price. According to these researchers there were 220 stores just in Raleigh, NC that were 'overcharging'.  Of course, these inspectors can't balance a budget, but that doesn't matter. Somebody overcharged the customer and now somebody has to pay.

What About The Under Chargers?

You never hear about that do you? You never hear the stories of someone picking up a $250 TV and only getting charged $25 at checkout. You know it happens though. You know it happens because it has probably happened to you.  It may be an easy decision to go ahead with the sale if you're the buyer. But what about the seller? What are they supposed to do? Well, that's easy too.

Admit The Mistake - Move On

I know it hurts financially, but it's not going to hurt near as much as an online social pounding of your company's reputation.  You've probably heard the expression,  'Do somebody right, and they will tell one person. Do somebody wrong and they will tell 20!"   When it comes to the online 'telling', it gets much worse. It's really not uncommon for someone to have 1000+ friends in their network. Those friends have friends, who have friends, and so on.  If one of those friends happen to be friends with someone with a million followers it could be a fiasco. And just in case you forgot about "The Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon" heres' your reminder.

Unless Of Course

I'm speaking from experience when it comes to this. I had a client who sold large ticket items. In fact, some of those items were over $500,000. A pricing mistake on an item of that size could be substantial, and in fact it was.  Understand that I didn't manage or add the inventory. The inventory was pulled from their accounting package. The pricing on the web was the same as the pricing in their system.  Except everybody in the world with internet access could see it. 

Minding My Own Business

So I was driving along minding my own business when a call came in about one of the items had been purchased for $200,000 less than it cost. Their inventory manager had mispriced it in their system. When the database synced, the price synced with it. It wasn't the first time it had happened. It was just the first time it involved that kind of money. The first time it happened it was a $200 error. My client took the sale, and avoided a problem.  I took a different route. And now that foresight was about to pay off. 

Prices Subject To???

The first time it happened I added a pricing disclaimer concerning published prices.  It clearly said that no sale was final until it was approved by management. It explained that it could be possible for a price to be incorrectly posted to the website.  There were images on every item. It couldn't be missed. But just to make sure, I added a step in the checkout that reiterated that the sale wasn't final until approved by management. They had to acknowledge reading it before they checked out.  I told the managers about what I did, but honestly they didn't really pay any attention. After all, that was Internet stuff... who cares about that anyway. Unless of course it's about to cost you 200K.  

What Happened?

I simply told the manager to check his email confirmation and to follow the link to the acknowledged disclaimer in the email.  He got off the phone and the whole situation was resolved.  

So if you don't have a disclaimer concerning pricing on your website, you need to get one. It will at least give you an option on handling an issue, rather than getting hurt financially, or reputation wise.

Let's Do This Thing!