We at Area 450 fell foul of this when we featured the Compacks DVD5000, stating it was £50. Here`s the e-mail Safeway sent us :
Quote:
Good morning, I`m writing from the Safeway marketing department - in the internet team.
Would it be possible for you to remove the reference to Safeway when talking about the Compacks DVD5000 Progressive Scan player on your site`s homepage? (Top righthand side of the screen, under the "NEW UK PLAYER ALERT").
The sentence reads: "Say helo to the £50 Compacks DVD5000 Progressive Scan player sold in Safeways - Sampo seem to be involved in it!"
We ask for this due to a customer complaint at one of our stores. This customer came to their local store quoting that your site had advertised this product for £50, when actually in-store at Safeway it was being sold for £60. The store manager gave the customer a £10 refund for this. This isnt an ideal scenario for the company so if you could remove the reference it would be most appreciated.
If you would like to keep a reference to Safeway somewhere within your site please add some text saying that the price may vary from store to store or something similar.
Many thanks.
And here was my totally astonished reply :
Quote:
Thanks for putting us straight on the pricing issue. It has become apparent that there are some pricing differences in Safeway stores across the UK with some offering the player for £49.99, and others offering the player for £10 more.
Area 450 is not the only place this fantastic DVD player is being talked about, and news of a very well-specified budget deck had spread like wildfire across a lot of popular DVD bulletin boards long before we got involved. In fact, we only got to hear that it was a player that fell into the subject matter covered at Area 450 about two weeks ago. Naturally, I hot-footed it to my nearest megastore and snagged myself one !
I have to confess to being a little bit baffled about your comments that your local store managers are issuing £10 refunds purely on the strength of an independent web site`s comments about the price (ie, Area 450).
£50 is what I, and a lot of folk, have paid for this player. If people paying £60 find out that other customers are paying £10 less for the same item, then I think that it`s only human nature that they are going to raise questions at your stores ! It does seem a little odd that, for a company of Safeway`s size, you operate different pricing levels for the same product. Having said that, I am aware that you may be in competition with other large supermarket chains in certain areas, and that there maybe will be differences. I suppose put from a customer`s point of view it just seems a little odd to have two prices. Ho hum...
Notwithstanding my cheeky observations above, however, I am very happy to remove references to the player just being priced at £50. Indeed, I`m pretty sure that this reduced price ended on 30th June, if my memory of the POS material is correct, so presumably all will now revert to £60.
I am sorry if our actions have caused embarrassment to your store managers. That certainly was never our intention. We are very keen to keep on the right side of good retailers, of which Safeway are undoubtedly one !
Again, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Clayton Hayward
UK Webmaster
Area 450
They never came back to me for some reason :D
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Webmaster of Area 450 - independent Sampo DVD site
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