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Amazon Sells IPAQs for $10
TomHoward writes "In a pretty huge blunder, amazon.co.uk have put the HP IPAQ H1910 (RRP about £300) for sale for just over £7.32 (plus postage and packing). It's very hard to get through to their site right now, but if you're quick you can have a look at their blunder here." Don't bother clicking through, Amazon has taken the items down.
1. Put up a product at a ridiculous price on Amazon, say about 10% normal price.
2. Get noticed.
3. (optional) Process about 10 orders at absurd price, to gain goodwill from market.
4. After a threshold number of 'absurd' orders, take down product.
5. Send link to Slashdot.
6. Enjoy.
Wonder what Amazon's charging HPaq for all the 'free' attention.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I don't expect to get one, but I (and one of my workmates) put in an order nonetheless.
:-)
Not mentioned anywhere else I've found was that the HP iPAQ H5450 was priced at about GB£23 also!
Needless to say that I ordered me one of those, too.
Remains to be seen whether Amazon will honour the price, but I doubt it.
There was also a £560 wifi model going for about £27. The £7 one was #1 on the sales list, while the £27 one got to about #20 before they shut the site down.
If you read the small print it says they won't charge your credit card until the order is ready for shipping (i.e not right away, so they haven't actually taken your money & hence accepted the contract to supply the goods).
They also reserve the right to refuse your order in the event of mispricing.
We ordered a couple & got the acceptance, but we're not expecting to actually get them. Still, you've got to be in to win...
The Register.
ZdNet.
People who I know must have orders 250+ between them. There is no way they would honour this - and every person who ordered realised it was a mistake, so they have nothing to whine about.
Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
Look at the Amazon URL. It includes the text "ref=sr_aps_electronics_1_1". That means that everyone following the link will get a cookie setting up a certain Amazon Associate to get a kickback of some percentage of everything you *do* happen to buy in the next couple of weeks.
Going by a mailing list I'm on it seems that some of the early buyers actually had their credit cards charged for this. Now under UK law these make a legally binding contract as payment has been made. Its going to be interesting to see how Amazon reacts to this one.
There was a similar case a few years back with Kodak where the mispriced a camera and finally ended up honouring the deal. Details on the inquirer.
Cheap UK and US VPS
What if you were going to sell your $12000 car and the ad in the newspaper printed $1200 by mistake?
Would you sell it for $1200? Doubtful. I love hypocrites who say a business should do what they wouldn't do themselves.
An ad in a newspaper is just an invitation to treat, you could still change your mind and never agree to sell the car to anyone.
A web site is intially the same, but once someone clicks to buy though there must be at least an offer, a message on screen saying that the order has been placed seems like acceptance to me, making a binding contract. If not then almost certainly receipt of an email confirming the order would make for a binding contract. I'm notfamiliar with any case law directly concerning web sites in this context though, just working from basic principles.
What if it were a company you owned stock in and you were going to lose part of your dividend? Bet you'd change your mind then too.
I think that's a stupid comment. I wouldn't change my mind about what I thought was the correct resolution in that situation. Are you saying that your opinion would change day to day if you were one day a seller and the next a buyer? That's pathetic.
A company has no reason to "honor" mistakes, that's why they print those little disclaimers about erronious listings.
It depends on whether a contract has actually been entered into. Once it has of course they're bound to honor it.