Moved to Forum: Original Link
Found this whilst browsing the site. It seems a lot cheaper than all other retailers so it seems like a good deal.
[PRICE ERROR] Asus Eee Slate Ep121 Windows 7 Tablet - $122 Harvey Norman
LSuperCow on 26/12/2012 - 02:23
Related Stores
Comments
what possibly is upsetting to a lot of people is the fact the price is no where near the store price which is $992 I checked Harvey Norman Martin Place today. They better fix price errors asap next time they advertise any deals on their website.
I believe if you read the fine print the original price will refer to a particular store (online is probably its own store). The rest of the stores are individual franchises and can set their own prices. It isnt like most other retail chains where head office sets prices.
(Suppliers and head office can set a suggested RRP but the stores do their own prices)
here for hoping guys it was a sensational deal to good to be true but i managed to get my refund after spending 30 min with them and my money is back in my account with in 15 min so at least im happy with the effort they put in to refund my money back quick
Gonna complain to FAIRTRADING!! As it does have the big bold text as "EOFY SALE ITEM!!" And "ONLINE ONLY DEAL "!!
You will just be wasting more of your time. Get your refund and move on…….
It doesnt hurt to try, plus fair trading does most of the work not me..
It wastes a lot of time and money. You are effectively a drain on society if you do this.
No it doesn't. These entities exist for a reason. The drain on society are people who think rogue behaviour by companies is acceptable and encourage it by not doing anything about it. I.e you
Harvey Norman - Hi Imtiaz Randhawa Unfortunately as this is a pricing error we are not able to honor any purchases of the Asus. We will be refunding all customers.
2 hours ago · Like · 1This is the official statement from Harvey Norman facebook page
i dont see that on the harvey norman facebook page
It seems the comment has been removed.
It's still there, it's under the post "Are you ready for the boxing day sales?"
The person asked on two posts about it.
These big companys keep shitting on us, DSE with their sale and then Harvey Norman with all his bullshit,
If i ever have to pay gst on importing goods ill make sure i firebomb a store of yours
It's official, HVN has posted on their facebook that they won't honour it as it was pricing error. TOTAL EPIC FAIL!
what their FB link about this cant find it
Go to Harvey Norman website and click on FB icon, then go to the very first post (Harvey Norman Boxing Day 2012 Store Hours), then click on "View all comments" and keep reading.
cant find that comment anymore, may be it has been remove, may be they are going to honour it. Just may be….
They indeed have removed it! I wouldn't get my hopes up still though, being HVN and all.
the comment is actually on the picture (Are you ready for the Boxing Day sales?)
Oh yes, it is there. There you go.
still there:
Harvey Norman Hi Imtiaz Randhawa Unfortunately as this is a pricing error we are not able to honor any purchases of the Asus. We will be refunding all customers
Have a neg for not reading not one comment from the last few pages.
I'm going to take issue with the idea that this was an obvious pricing error.
This deal popped up early in the morning on Boxing Day and it was clearly labeled "EOY CLEARENCE SALE". In the past Australian retailers have offered big discounts on Boxing Day, my aunt once scored herself a medium size fridge for $150.
Oddball niche products like this 20 month old Windows 7 tablet which according to the manufacturer will not work properly with the tablet-optimised Windows 8 are exactly the sort of thing I expect to be given huge discounts. It's entirely plausible that something like this would be put on sale for a fraction of it's original value which makes me wonder if this really was just a scummy publicity stunt.
What a perfect post…! Yes to everything you said!
A big YES from me. HVN, Good luck selling this tablet at full price! People these days, they go for cheaper Non-Windows platform tablet. Ipads and Androids evolve so fast and as these become cheaper. Even if HVN selling this for $300 in 12 months time, I wouldn't touch it. Good luck getting rid of them HVN - Good Bye!
I don't think you understand how big name retailers work. You assume they need to move them or make a loss with them down the track when they do not sell.
What will actually happen is acer will keep paying HN cash to effectively mark down the cost of the units. If they dont sell HN will just hit acer up for a few hundred dollars per unit to move them.
Well the point was its not obvious error. So if he doesn't understand every little in and out of how big retailers work, which most shoppers wouldnt and shouldn't be expected to know it makes the point of why its not obvious.
Yes, I agree it was a plausible clearance price, certainly it's overpriced as it is, but I tend to suspect stupidity than malice. They've tied up many man hours recovering and got a bad rep from it so no good publicity for them. I think a previous comment pointed out that somebody put the X in "save $X" as the price. If so then the e-commerce system is not robust. Surely it is only necessary to put in the current price and the computer can work out the "save $X" and the "Y% off" from the previous price.
Aussie retailers have been playing the bait and switch game for years, especially on Boxing Day (or as it used to be on the 27th) when they'd have a small number of products on sale for 80 or 90% off in order to lure shoppers into buying less dramatically discounted stock.
Under Australian consumer law bait and switch advertising is technically illegal however it's common in practice and as far as I'm aware never punished. Many of you are aware of Catch of The Day's tactics as I'm sure many Oz Bargainers were amongst the 100,000+ people who simultaneously attempted to buy the 40 Samsung Galaxy S3's they had on sale for $399.
Catch of the Day is a very successful business by most accounts and I wouldn't be surprised if Harvey Norman was trying to emulate them. It would be the ultimate refinement of bait and switch tactics because the retailer wouldn't have to have ANY actual discounted stock in order to attract extra business.
Its not so much bait and switch, its a loss leader item/items. Bait and switch infers that an item is placed on sale, and then they supply/offer a different item instead.
Loss leaders are used everywhere in retail, Coles and Woolies are the big two that do it.
The are/were generating a lot of traffics through to their website that is currently having a boxing day sale.
They have a bad enough reputation already so i dont think they care about this giving them a bad rep.
This was posted at 2:30 am, the website went down maintenance briefly at 3am(probably due to high traffic generate from this deal) it went back up a few minute later and nothing was change, people continue to order away.They have realise that this was their mistake and still make no formal attempt to inform us to what action they will take next.
Well I have no desire to argue over this until the cows come home. Either way one does not get customers by tricks or by incompetence. One simply has to provide reliable and trustworthy service. The big boys like Amazon have been refining their game for years. HN is an embarrassment to itself and Aussie businesses in general.
That is what I think as well as it is EOY Clearance Sale, when we talk about clearance, this means we wants to get rid of it at all costs, and the only way they can get rid of it is priced it at a substantially low price. If they have priced it at $400-500 ea, I don't think anyone will buy it as Ipad 4 and Nexus 10 is priced at that range with the latest processor and technology. This tablet is 2 years old model and nobody is that stupid to pay that amount, I think you can get a Surface for $500+ without the keyboard now which is the latest hype products if you wants a windows tablet.
If they priced it between $300-400, there is a lot of options as well including the Ipad mini which is quite nice, although I will not buy it until it get a retina screen.
If they priced it at between $200-300, there is the Nexus 7 tablet which is quite good, they will be able to sell some of it but to get rid of all the stocks altogether, it may be difficult. I for one will not buy at this price because it is an old product (read second hand products sold on ebay in excellent condition equivalent).
As such, the only way they can guaranteed a sold out is to sell it really cheap, hence the $122 sell price, just like the HP tablet previously.
I guess they did not expect that it sold so fast and think they can now priced it higher and sold it out, and claimed it is a price error as they think the same people will bite again if they now sell it for say $400. Good luck to them then.
The difference between the HP TouchPad fire sale and this was that HP announced it was killing the HP TouchPad line and began slashing prices in the US to get rid of them at the $150 price. After a day or so, Harvey Norman confirmed it was doing the same via Twitter (and social media), Radio and News Websites. The HP TouchPad fire sale was a planned and carefully orchestrated sale by HP and Harvey Norman together.
I completely agree with this. When I saw this deal at roughly 2:00 am, I immediately thought to myself that the deal itself was plausible due to the tablet being an older model that isn't fully compatible with Windows 8. After all, aren't they trying to get rid of all computers that aren't optimised for windows 8?
After about half an hour of trying to get through (this was before the deal became popular), I finally nabbed one. If they aren't going to honor the deal, then Harvey Norman, being the massive company that it is, should compensate its buyers for wasting their time, and for using unprofessional bait and switch tactics.
Although, to be honest, what we just witnessed was typical Gerry Harvey. Nothing too surprising here…
It cant be bait and switch if there is no switch…..
Plausible, yes but more likely a pricing error.
Post number two in this thread:
"Its not good…. its awesome deal…. But somehow I feel this is pricing error…"Look at the tone in just about every post in this thread. The majority seemed to believe it was a pricing error and were hoping it would be honored. I don't know what HN could hope to gain from it. I don't think the publicity or internet traffic would outweigh the goodwill which has been burnt.
Yeah mate no way is it obvious error. if i saw this tomorrow id jump on it.
Why is this deal still on front page of ozbargain? What a joke, giving Gerry free advertising……
I'm retaining my upvote for now, maybe it's a chance to hold him accountable.
Yes it really did (at first) seem like a genuine EOY CLEARENCE SALE, why cant us ozbargainers have a win for a change, alas HV can go and get…. have a nice day its off to overseas online I go or The Good Guys.
But if you boycott Harvey Norman then where will you buy your genuine Monster 1000HD HDMI cable for a mere $249? After all it would be pointless buying a new TV if you're going to ruin the picture quality with a cheap cable, just ask the Harvey Norman salesmen, they're the experts.
Are you saying that people actually pay that kind of price… that's insane!
Every day mate. Hundreds of these are sold at $249. Every single day. And 9 times out of 10, it's due to the staff lying to uninformed consumers that the TV won't work without this high quality cable, or they won't get the best picture quality.
When you refuse this $249 cable they will ramp up the pressure on you, strongly implying you are an idiot and you've just wasted your money. If you are with someone in the store they will hold you up in front of them as an uninformed moron who doesn't know what they're doing, and will start to question what expertise and knowledge you have over them. They will question your line of employment, how many TV's have you sold in your life, what qualifications do you have? They will pretty much try and embarass you into buying one.
In the end, with customers who are financing their purchase, they will try and bs you into buying it because you aren't paying any extra today it's just part of the great deal you've just purchased and financed. And if you look at the 3 year old RRP of the TV you just bought, you're making a huge saving even after buying this $249 monster cable.
Enjoy your monster cable sir, you've made the right choice. By the way, you're an absolute idiot if you don't get extended warranty with your TV. What are you going to do in a year when warranty runs out? I am pleased I can offer you this extended warranty for $xxx to protect your investment. I'll just add it to your invoice. If you have any issues or faults with your TV or magic HDMI cable and wish for us to help you out with the warranty process, please give us a ring and we'll give you the contact number for the manufacturer so you can deal with them, it's not our problem coz we own the ACCC.
Yeah Ozbaraginers better not expect their price errored tablet, that would be an unethical expectation from this highly moralistic company.
Yes, they pay that price for a 2m HDMI cable when they could buy a functionally identical cable off Ebay for $10 including delivery.
I've heard that the salesmen push it really hard because their commissions are based off net profit and naturally there's more money to be made selling a HDMI cable for $249 than a 40" TV for $500.
The one time I had to deal with Harvey Norman's TV salesmen I claimed to be an Electrical Engineer and that shut them up pretty quickly.
Lol… love it!! The look on their face would have been priceless!
Bet they knew they would fighting a lost battle.A guy i know bought a 10m Monster cable for his projector. Was almost $400!
I bought a 2nd hand projector, a new motorised screen and an ebay HDMI for less than his cable :)
The extended warranty can be useful on some things. Laptops and cameras for example as they are hard to fix. They often just get replaced. Never pay the full quoted price though. You should be able to get the warranty between 5-10% of the product price as a rough guide.
You really shouldnt need extended warranty on TVs and white goods. The average person expects them to last longer than a year so if they fail after 2 you still should be covered by law anyway.
"Every day mate. Hundreds of these are sold at $249. Every single day. And 9 times out of 10, it's due to the staff lying to uninformed consumers that the TV won't work without this high quality cable…"
Do you have proof of this…..are you some sort of Secret Spy?
And, everybody upsells. In every industry there are those who will TRY to rip you off, and sell you what you perhaps do not really need. Every industry, from Maccas (upselling food items that you had no intention of buying) or new cars (fish oil and paint protect your new investment, sir/maam?) flight centre with (over inflated insurance prices and airport transfer fees) or whatever!
Simply DO YOUR RESEARCH before you buy anything. It takes 5 mins. And can prepare you for what might happen at the point of sale.
If I am a HN rep, and I can get someone to buy an expensive overpriced cable, I will do so. My bosses are probably giving me targets to reach, if I don't reach them, my job could be at risk.
Should I be murdered for it? Isn't it the same as when I go to an expensive restaurant and I see a $110 bottle of wine on the menu that is available at Dan Murphys for $25? Its my choice to order it or not.I DO NOT turn around and blame the wait staff who brought it to my table. It was my choice to pay over inflated prices!
Shoppers need to take some responsibility for how they shop and what they buy and how much they spend. Retail is tough enough.
No it is not the same. The waitress is not standing there and telling you that your meal is not good without the wine…the whole point is that the HN rep will lie to sell you something that he/she knows you do not need and they pray on people that are not technical enough to know it is a lie. Particularly in the case of the elderly this amounts to fraud.
Will only blame them if they give unethical lies. I was once a victim of HN when I said wanted a receiver could use one HDMI cable for both video and audio. Ended up buying a receiver required a separate fibre optic cable for audio. Went back to ask for an exchange the sales rep blamed me for not telling him and could only give me store credit. Forgot to mention that he did try very hard to sell me a $200 monster HDMI cable.
choosing wine and being pressured and bullied into purchases are not the same thing, educate yourself before you preach!
I heard a guy tell a lady at DSE that she needed the more expensive HDMI cable because the other one couldn't handle 3D, and they were both the same version!!! I love hearing about "high speed" HDMI cables, I'm pretty sure electrical signals travel at a fixed speed…
This is just as bad as mobile "caps" that give customers the idea they won't be charged over a certain amount when really it means they won't be charged under a certain amount.
This could have been such a good marketing opportunity for HN to build their goodwill should they have honored the deal, specially at this time of the year.
Oh well, their loss… =)Exactly, HVN should turn this crisis into opportunity!
This Gerry Harvey or whoever shit he is, has tried a lot to impose duties on goods purchased from overseas to sell his overpriced items and now this joke with online shoppers, similar thing happened with me last year when I shopped through Walmart online but they honored it for everyone. Hence this Gerry should keep mouth shut as his tiny organization can't compete with biggies like Walmart, we all wasted our time and also this is kinda killing of excitement considering the festive season.
I saw an interview with Gerry on Lateline a couple of years ago. He must have gone senile recently because otherwise I have no idea how someone so moronic could have made that much money without inheriting it.
A lot of people bought his stuff because he was Australian and only for that reason. These days he's sold his company and that's screwing over Aussies by giving them the idea they are buying Aussie when he's really sold his name off to foreigners. Then he whinges about online retailers… oh well what goes around comes around.
I think the media needs to know about this!
Are you suggesting ACA or Today Tonight or newspaper stream perhaps?
I'm suggesting everything. Newspapers, Radio Stations, Television. We can't let Harvey Norman get away with it every time they make a mistake.
These pricing errors happen far too often these days
There was a comment on heraldsun today under the article "Shoppers forgo sleep for sales rush" about someone buying Ep121.
"News just in, website had a pricing error." - front page stuff that…
I'll be back to neg you for being a schmooftie tomorrow!
Oh no, maybe that will make the news as well!
"Duff5000 gets a neg on ozbargain" - about as worthy a news story as a price being wrong and money refunded.
PS: there are more important things going on in the world than having your order canceled due to a pricing error.
PS: there are more important things going on in the world than having your order canceled due to a pricing error.
Not to me there's not
two negs incoming, have some consideration for others please :
))Have some consideration for others?
I am lacking consideration because i think that it is laughable that this would be considered news?
Maybe you should have some consideration that people make mistakes and the incorrect price was fixed pretty quickly (in the middle of the night on a public holiday to boot). Maybe also consider that you are essentially saying you should be able to force a company to loose potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars. How very considerate of you.
If you don't like people airing their grievances here, get the heck out of this thread. Geez. It's ironic you tell people they're wasting time yet you spend plenty time here, and what for? You didn't partake in the deal, why continue to partake in this thread? If i didn't order, i seriously wouldn't give two hoots what people are arguing about and would avoid this thread altogether
He's sour that he missed out on a chance of scoring a great bargain. Now he's attacking everyone to kill their happiness. At Christmas time too. It's a sad world isn't it?
ive wasted 3 negs on you, have some consideration for other so i can spread the christmas joy, herp derp :)
Good for you. Not sure how i have spoiled your Christmas joy….
Doesn't that come from spending time with family and frineds? Personally i don't get my jollies by getting angry at retailers that make a pricing error.
Did i grab far cry 3 the other day for $8? yep, would i have cracked the sads and contacted ACA if they cancelled my key and gave me a refund? not at all.
good for me? judging by your last post, im starting to think ive been debating with a crazy person…
They make headline out of the queen cat or dog being sick so why not
MODS: I think the title should be changed to reflect pricing error. Thanks.
I have not received any communication from HN regarding this deal - how hard is it to send out a generic message stating the pricing error. I highly doubt we will get our refunds within the next 24-48hours
I also thought it was a legit deal as it had EOY clearance, l would not be buying this for $300 as i'd prefer mini ipad, nexus 7 , nexus 10 and for around $600 would rather get the Windows 8 surfacelol i just went on FB the last comment from them states dont know whats the issue everyones on about
Adding further to the comments above, my first thought of this deal was not of a pricing error, rather, a really good clearance price - it needs to be to compete with the likes of Nexus 7, ipad mini etc. Perfectly plausible clearance price in this competitive market, i would think.
My other problem with this deal (which makes it bordering on bait advertising) is the fact it was clearly in amongst their other Boxing day items (see other thread). The cynic in me would think "pricing errors" like this are placed in amongst the other items to generate traffic to their sale. Also, they are clearing phones cases with 94% discount in amongst this sale so this 90% clearance (based off $999) isn't that ridiculous.
my 2c
What is even more laughable is that they are pricing the product at around the $900 mark, with their special discount. Seriously, someone is taking us for a ride…
I'm rather annoyed they have posted this apology on Facebook. I don't use the damn thing and if they don't want to honour a purchase I made I expect them to contact me directly advising me so.
i imagine everyone will get an email/contacted at some point.
Pretty poor form if they don't.
they didnt post anything on facebook, that is just a comment to answer one person question.
That was not a formal announcement nor an apology.
So I asked on one of their facebook posts when we'll receive a refund and they deleted the comment. Way to go, fantastic service. Out of sight, out of mind.
got the confirmation email this afternoon, any good?
Please refer to the [PRICE ERROR] in the thread title, and also Pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of this thread. :P
I realise the chances of HN honouring this deal is zero, but wouldn't it be nice if just for once - they did.
Like M&S did in the UK earlier this year.Petition forces M&S to honour orders after pricing error puts £1,099 TVs on sale for £199
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-2089372/Mar…
Where do I sign up to this HN petition?
Sign me in too.
Any one wants to try
or
PS not associated with the above in anyway.
the problem is, they couldn't even if they wanted to. Going by last night, there was no limit to the number people could check out and it became obvious there was no live stock feed. So people test added 10000 units without rejection. I'm guessing they don't have over 10,000 of these to supply. Their whole inventory system is pretty crap by the looks of things
Nah, they might be just using our money to pay off some of their debts or for better cash flows which in fact is a temporary borrowing from the public to raise money without issuing a proper certificate. If I do it on purpose I wouldn't set a limit on qty either and borrow as much as possible. Remember it is interest free and no securities are held and based on the history it might not be repaid within a month.
good point… although i highly doubt they are doing this, if you do the math, $122 per order, through paypal over let's say anywhere from 1000-4000 orders would get you $122 000 to half a mil!… how many clicks did this deal get? can't see anymore but 1000+ orders would be conservative
This is an interesting theory - is Harvey Norman about to collapse? Does the media know?? Should the ASX place a trading halt on HN shares?
Insolvent trading is illegal in Australia and the directors will be personally liable to pay off the debts of the company.
I missed the "deal" but for HN to claim the pricing error is a bit rich, as the transaction has been concluded with a failure to deliver.
If you were at a bricks and mortar store and you had the goods in posession, paid the ticked price and was walking out the door would they be able to stop you at that stage?
Just cos the process is automated, does this mean conclusion of payment is not real.
Exactly. The advertised price on the website was real and specific to the Asus tablet pc and led to a group of individuals to commit to a purchase on that basis. It implied an "online only" clearance sale along other products selling for as low as 99c.
Whatever caused this pricing mishap is of no concern to those who made the purchase and should only be dealt internally within the business (tighter control procedures maybe?)And a stock level.
Well no, I get tired of explaining this, it's not analogous. In fact if there is any analogy, you are just at the stage of having told the salesman (the website) you will offer $122 for the item and the salesman says he has recorded your offer and will get back to you when his masters (the humans) accept your offer. They have not agreed to sell to you at that point. Only when they have taken your money and issued you with a receipt transferring ownership to you is the sale done.
Those people who wanted to paid by Paypal had a hold put on the amount but it was not actually taken. Those of us who wanted to pay by CC never heard back from them.
They will refund all the customers.
https://www.facebook.com/HarveyNormanAU?ref=ts&fref=ts
Yuhdi Sinaga Harvey Norman Hi Imtiaz Randhawa Unfortunately as this is a pricing error we are not able to honor any purchases of the Asus. We will be refunding all customers