Are Price Glitches Ethical?
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Received an email yesterday from Dodow, the company that makes the sleep aid that was ”free” on a price glitch last week via Amazon. Will post screen shot below. I got one, so I’m certainly not judging, but I must admit I didn’t really think about the company and its employees when I saw a “free” gadget and jus grabbed one for the sake of it, certainly something I wouldn’t have bought otherwise.
The email states 10,000 took advantage of this mistake, which will cost the company £440,000 in lost sales revenue (although admittedly I’m sure they wouldn’t have sold this extra 10,000 if they weren’t literallt giving them away. I‘ll be returning mine. Wondered what everybody else thinks about this and whether anyone feels we have an ethical obligation to decide which accidental freebies to cash in on?
I do think if the price is only low because it is a mistake then it is not a deal and it is not ethical and I don't go for price glitch. yes I might get the odd think that I was charged incorrectly for at the time but if I notice at the time I will mention it.
Would you say that the retailer in question matters? I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid getting one over on Amazon, and to be honest I assumed an amazon price glitch would be coming out of their pocket, but knowing this relatively small company with only 9 employees is the ones being affected I feel guilty.
Glad you brought this up - I do consider taking advantages of other people mistakes unethical (almost dishonest) I might be too honest but when I've discovered an obvious glitch - very often on ebay - I've taken the trouble to contact the seller and point it out.
On one occasion on Ebay I put in my "highest bid" which shows as a low bid until somebody beats it, nobody else bid so I could have had that item for a paltry sum, I, without being asked, contacted the seller and asked if he wanted to back out of his obligation to sell - and even advised if he relisted to put a reserve or "buy it now" price on it. I hope others would do the same for me.
It doesn't, in my opinion, matter if it is a big company or an individual I was brought up to believe that "cheats never prosper" If I, with the item I could have had for 50p but easily worth over two hundred pounds, (it was a guitar actually) although not cheating, I could have got no pleasure from playing it.
I don't mind bargains but have absolutely no time for glitches.
mattmcnicholas It was a Levin acoustic. I have two Levins and also a Levin/Martin. Martin took over the Swedish Levin company in the 70s. My first guitar was a Levin - bought second hand in 1958 - if I'd looked after it, it would be worth a lot of money now.
I don't know how many guitars I've got - somewhere between 30 and 40 at the last count
davidstockport nice collection no doubt! Never heard of Levin. Gotta dash, I’m up to my eyeballs (working in stockport coincidentally)
mattmcnicholas Levin guitars were probably better than Martins - it's said that Martin took them over to stop the competition or the stocks of wood they had,
This might interest you:
mattmcnicholas It interested me too - I knew in the famous picture of Django he was playing a Levin guitar and found that video when looking for it - got to admit it's some guitar.
I don't know what you were doing in Stockport - but hope you enjoyed your visit.
davidstockport painting/decorating and a bit of plumbing. There all next week too! Driving over from leyland every morning has been a joy 
mattmcnicholas Wished I'd known - I needed some help with plumbing but think I've sorted out how to fix it.
I think with the small companies it does make me feel really bad, and in this instance I probably would have donated because the seller appears honest. I didn't get one but did try, I believed it was Amazon who would be swallowing the loss and as a massive multi million pound companyi justify in my head. Why does Amazon let products sell for 0.00?
I'm not sure about Amazon but some companies sell for ZERO (or a trivial amount) because they make a big profit on the P&P charges.
Just gave me an idea writing that - next time I've some rubbish to get rid off - I might try selling it for nothing too. Some people will buy anything if it's cheap enough. (that could be a reasom Amazon do it too)
Seems like it was a glitch at amazons end, and I assumed companies would be protected by Amazon having the appropriate insurances. This transaction didnt require any voucher codes etc which might have accounted for someone at Dodow submitting an erroneous code which makes them liable. As far as I can tell this would have been a pricing error at Amazon end. Who knows, but I hope I don’t have to pay the postage to return this.
the missing option on their email is “ignore and keep”. I’m under no obligation to return it obviously but I would like to minimise their losses without costing me anything.
The problem with glitches is you never know if it's a small company or not until this happens. Sometimes it's a well known BIG company and with their multi million pound profits it's not so bad but small companies like this it's really not fair for them to lose out because of one mistake. I would only try and buy "glitches" if I really needed one and I would've bought it at full price anyway. I like collecting freebies but not to the detriment of a company.
The GHD glitch though, I got and they honored the pricing because they were a large company. They didn't have to but they did. They had a loss but they took it on the chin. Probs because none of those things really cos that much money.
Only been using this site a few weeks and half the posts have glitch in the title even if it’s clearance etc. In this case I didn’t have to stack or use any codes, just add it to basket and buy for 0.00. Glitches being unethical, does that mean you would or wouldn’t buy them? Curious.
I agree that they are not ethical no matter who the retailer is. yes amazon can afford it but it is dishonest and I don't do it
I placed an order with Aveda with 6 free items, they didn’t send one. When I emailed I was told it was a technical error which they wouldn’t honour so in my experience I never received the glitch but the company benefited from my order.
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