If an online purchase is made hours before a big sale starts, should shops let the customer know? Erica Munro mulls it over.
Last month, a dear friend came to stay, bringing lovely gifts – champagne, stripy candles, and gorgeous, Scandi socks.
I wore my pair for three days straight. My feet felt truly loved, perhaps for the first time.
When it comes to buying Christmas presents, I prefer to shop local. However, I’d fallen in love with my socks, and love can do strange things to a person.
I knew that the lives of my young adult nieces and nephews, of whom I am blessed with 11, would be hugely improved by the addition of quality Scandinavian cosiness around their beautiful feet. Plus, for the sake of personal hygiene, I thought I’d better get a few more pairs for myself.
So, last Thursday night, I went online and picked out a handsome selection. Full of festive glee about the joy they would bring so many people, I clicked. And clicked. And clicked. And, before you can say “bankruptcy”, my gigantic order was in.
I rode out buyer’s guilt like a pro; these were an investment. Now that freezing to death in the energy crisis is a horrifyingly real possibility for some, shoppers are buying massive hoodies covered in unicorns, heated neck-warmers, solar heaters, or fluffy throws as Christmas gifts. I’m targeting the extremities; there will be no frostbitten toes on my watch.
Black Friday brought on a dilemma
The next morning, I woke up to a cascade of adverts on my social media feeds, because it was Black Friday – a phenomenon I associate with fridges and power drills, and tend to ignore. But, would you like to take a guess at which company was going in the hardest with their price-slashing? Yes.
Proving that the internet owns the keys to our very souls, my North Atlantic sock company was front and centre, touting 30% off everything. It only took rudimentary maths, luckily for me, to realise that, if I’d delayed ordering by four hours, I would have saved £80.
Embarrassment added to the pain of the financial hit. How had I become so carried away with notions of nephews and nieces marvelling how their fun Auntie Erica had only gone and done it again, that I hadn’t seen I’d ordered a truckload of overpriced goods? They were good quality, I knew that for a fact, but my enthusiasm for them had dwindled to the point of dreading their arrival.
I had four options. One was to do nothing. They were already on their way. Excellent customer service, maybe, or a ploy to deter people like me from cancelling after their prices plummeted hours later?
Option two: wait for them to arrive, then return them for a refund.
Three: put in the whole order again, at Black Friday prices, and then return the original ones – a ploy which seemed risky and a right old faff.
Which brings me to option four: a dreaded prospect for a scaredy-cat. I whined at them in an email, politely explaining that, if I’d ordered my socks mere hours later, I would be much better off, and could they please offer a partial refund, so none of us would be inconvenienced by my deployment of option three above?
£80 is too much to kiss goodbye
They said no, which is understandable, as they did nothing wrong. Instead, they offered a voucher for 30% off my next purchase, which was kind, but I couldn’t imagine ordering any more socks for ages, so it wouldn’t have been any use.
I thanked them for the gesture, and said I’d return the order and rebuy at the lower price. It wasn’t the merriest email I’ve ever sent, but I meant it. Eighty pounds is too much money to kiss goodbye when lawful redress exists, whereby both parties can still profit.
I realised then that I was corresponding with a pleasant customer service employee, armed with a sliding scale of morsels to offer girny customers who don’t go quietly
The shop’s next message was just as friendly, offering 10% off the order, payable after I received my socks. I realised then that I was corresponding not with a someone personally invested in my case but, rather, a pleasant customer service employee, armed with a sliding scale of morsels to offer girny customers who don’t go quietly.
So, I thanked them again and sweetly asked for 15%. There seemed something satisfying about meeting halfway, given the amount of sheer courtesy flying back and forth.
Did I do the right thing?
Our diplomatic hotline went dead for a couple of days, until a short, stock email arrived stating that 15% of the purchase price had been refunded to my account.
I appeared to have won. But, it was a victory gained at the expense of a lot of festive cheer.
Did I do the right thing? We’ve all bought things and then spotted them half-price in the sales. I don’t know anyone who marches into the shops asking for half their money back – do you?
I took action this time because I felt so stung by the proximity of my order to the reductions kicking in.
Anyway, today I opened my laptop to see that the company has reduced their prices still further, in a Yuletide campaign to tempt the hitherto untempted. Maybe I should have asked for even more money back.
Erica Munro is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter and freelance editor
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