As one of the beneficiaries of the below mentioned blunder, I will ever remain a loyal customer to Appliances Online. Thanks John for being a top bloke!
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/appliances-o…
John Winning from Appliances Online = TOP BLOKE
thebargainhunter on 08/08/2018 - 13:03
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What a legend, how is the Kitchenaid holding up?
It's a beast, wife loves it.
Nice find. Per their rep:
We only had 6 blue mixer+spiralizers in stock, so we had to order 184 additional ones from KitchenAid at our usual cost price (which we had already sold at $281), so yes, we took a bit of a hit.
Ouch. That's some dedication to honouring their prices though. Damn.
Kogan also did the same thing honoring a price mistake that although the reasons for doing so (and therefore the outcome) was quite different. He claimed he made a loss of 30k on Twitter
I still have that mug. I'm drinking from it now. Cheers, Kogan.
Huh, not bad. I wonder if they'd do that these days because I think I remember Kogan cancelling some other price error orders last couple of years.
Reading that, especially excerpts from some of the people who attended, Kogan does seem like a cool guy. I get that they're a lot of the time grey-importers, have budget quality products, etc, but at the same time their prices and after-sales service seem at least decent, and far better than other options you'd go to for grey imports or similarly cheap products.
I think I've seen this article re-hashed at least a dozen times (and probably sindicated on hundreds of websites).
The guy has got his money's worth from related publicity.
His actual loss is not 100k it's cost price minus $281. I would guess it's closer to 50k … It wouldn't surprise me if it was just a marketing stunt orchestrated by Kitchen Aid and Appliances online.
Anyhow, I'm not saying he's a bad bloke and maybe he's just salvaging a bad situation or maybe I'm just too skeptical.
It wouldn't surprise me if it was just a marketing stunt orchestrated by Kitchen Aid and Appliances online.
That is a bit cynical haha, even I wouldn't suspect it was staged, because the nature of something going 'viral' is so unknown that to spend $100k (or even $50k) on something hoping it would go viral would get any marketer fired.
Apologies for the late response as I only just saw this.
I can tell you 100% without doubt it was not staged and anyone from either Appliances Online and KitchenAid will be able to say that on the record too.
When we walked in the morning and our alerts notified us of the extra overnight sales, our jaws collectively dropped.
The only team that was happy (no joke), were the R&D team that maintain the pricing algorithm as it was the first pricing error the algorithm had made on our live server. The error made it past the usual checks because it was a bundle consisting of two products. While the two products were correctly uploaded to the system, the bundle had not. It (the price) essentially gestated for months with the algorithm gradually dropping the price low enough for OzB to detect.
Even discounting the cost of the error, the extra amount of effort it took to get everything honoured was not something we would do for a publicity stunt as it took a huge amount of time away from our customer support and logistics teams that would have been spent on new customers and deliveries.
Except for the part where most OzBargainers wouldn't be considered return customers. They buy it because it's cheap and/or flog it off on eBay, Gumtree etc. for more.
Whilst price is definitely a large factor, service is also extremely important in my eyes.
I have ordered thousands of $$ off appliances online because they offer extremely good prices, they install the product for free (in most cases) and it will be delivered the next day.I live in an apartment so getting goods up stairs is a pain - their online tracking is also great because I know exactly when the delivery will occur. If I were to purchase the same product from any other store I wouldn't receive this transparency - so I would have to stay home from work all day waiting for the delivery to occur.
In one of my orders there was an error on the listing with regards to the components that the product came with, I emailed them about it and they arranged for the manufacturer to deliver those components to me - at their cost.
Another order required the modification of a cupboard in order to install a washing machine - it was only a small modification but they did it for free - anyone else would have plonked the machine there and told me to sort it out.
I dunno, they are by far one of the best companies i've ever dealt with - I recommend them to everyone.
It's a good thing I wasn't referring to you then. The majority of OzBargainers are infact guests so you really don't know who they are. It's not uncommon to see price errors that were honoured being showing up on eBay/Gumtree for higher prices. That much is fact and there is no denying it.
And the people that do this are just as bad.
I've been a return customer of theirs several times and would gladly pay a (very) small percent more to buy from them instead of one of their competitors. Largely because of the good service offering they have.
Majority of members here are good and I wasn't targeting them. Just those who buy up/abuse the price errors or low prices to resell for profit. Or those who buy it because it's cheap and don't actually need it. I've never understood that mentality. Wasting money on something you don't need.
I know personally I show very little brand loyalty, except when it comes to recommending products, brands, or stores to friends and family. I'd consider myself a knowledgeable shopper, and so when it comes to my own purchases I might consider lesser brands, or smaller stores, etc. But if I'm recommending something? I'll go with the ones with proven track record.
For example, I haven't ever bought a Dell myself (but I've used many Dells from work), but because of my experiences with Dell and their customer support, they're my go-to recommendation for everything from pre-builts to laptops. Conversely places like random eBay stores, while I might take the risk, it's unlikely I'd recommend any specific eBay store to a friend just because if they're not knowledgeable about buying online, I'm not going to risk it blowing up and then having to deal with the fallout.
Edit: Actually even that's not true. I show less brand loyalty about products I have knowledge about. In products that I'm less experienced in (audio for example, or TVs, etc) - I tend to be quite risk-averse and also go with more established/well-known brands and/or models.
As soon as they have another price error and decide that they can't take the loss, people will forget about this and threaten with boycotting/accc etc again.
Oh I think I heard about this right after it happened. That's some damned good (and long-term, and ballsy) PR-savvy. Hope it turns into long-term success and customers for the company because we need more companies like this one.