Printer Supermarket Blocking Officeworks Access to Stop Price Beating!

teasatotalling on 16/10/2016 - 08:48

Interesting tactic from Printer Supermarket.
I ring up Officeworks to price beat Printer Supermarket on a Canon inkjet cartridge.
The customer service girl states that Printer Supermarket blocks access from Officeworks staff (must be IP blocking).
Thought it was funny and had a joke with her about it.
I got her to price beat Computer Parts Land instead for not much more, which ended up as a 30% saving on the Officeworks price.

But it gets you thinking - what if a number of business do this blocking? It will mean Officeworks price beat policy will become impotent

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Comments

  • Clear on 16/10/2016 - 09:01
    +3

    So how would Printer Supermarket know the individual IPs of each store? That doesn't seem right.

    • teasatotalling on 16/10/2016 - 09:44

      It was the central 1300 customer service centre

    • [Deactivated] on 16/10/2016 - 19:35
      +2

      Each store probably has a VPN to a single aggregation point and WAN access from there.

      Thus every store has the same public IP.

      It's very common.

      • Clear on 16/10/2016 - 19:36

        Not the ones I deal with.

        • [Deactivated] on 16/10/2016 - 19:37
          +1

          How do you know what their corporate network infrastructure is like?

        • Clear on 16/10/2016 - 21:40

          @Drew22: Networks are my profession.

        • [Deactivated] on 16/10/2016 - 23:10

          @Clear:
          Aren't you a clever boy.

        • Clear on 16/10/2016 - 23:14
          +1

          @Drew22: That's what mummy told me.

  • peterpeterpumpkin on 16/10/2016 - 09:54
    +1

    If IP blocking became systematic then Officeworks wouldn't be able to use it as an excuse.

    If they wish to provide the guarantee, they can always use proxies and mobile-connected devices as backup.

  • spackbace on 16/10/2016 - 14:26

    Ever thought it was just a line she used to prevent such a cheap price beat…?

  • Name on 16/10/2016 - 20:10

    When I was doing a price match at masters (a while ago) the sales rep just got me to email him a screenshot of the deal plus link. He didn't bother going to the website. Maybe try that next time?

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