Can An Amazon Seller Cancel The Sale?

[Tresconik]

 

When he cancelled it due to an error and refunded the money, it meant that he hadn't accepted it and that's OK.

Wouldn't it be an offer to the world at large, and thus mean that bbs accepted their offer to sell the pen at that price?

[Lamyrada]

A seller can certainly cancel a sale. If the product is out, if the price was misprinted or wrong they certainly have the right to cancel the sale. I do not know where the idea that a seller HAS to honor a 'misprint' price comes from. It is certainly not the case. Many choose to as a customer service, but they are not bound to do so.

 

With Amazon in particular prices and information for products are often 'bulk' loaded and mistakes can and do happen. They are usually fixed before folks see them, but if someone orders something before the price is fixed the seller can certainly cancel the order.

 

Another reason for canceling a sale is being out of stock and unable to obtain more at that same price. A seller may have a certain quantity of items that they got at a good price and are padding the discount along. When they run out they have to pay more for the replacement stock nd the new price will reflect that higher cost of goods. Again it is sometimes mistakes happen and stock levels don't match what the Amazon system has online.

There are tools for inventory control and scheduling; it is called math. You sell one, you deduct one from inventory, and there is software that does that. Not to mention a simple Excel spreadsheet.

 

From where I come from, if you misprint a price and make it public, you are stock with that and are responsible for it. I think that is the way to go. You shouldn't be able change the prices of goods as they become more desirable. Do you like it when they do it for gas?

[Lamyrada]

This reminds me of one time I was attending a "seminar" where they were selling a digital video editing equipment for less than $25,000" at the end of the activities for the morning. This was the last thing in business video editing. I asked the guy in front of the audience how much LESS than $25,000? He kept avoiding the answer and I kept asking. Finally he gave up and said $24,999 ! LOL The silence in the room was unbreakable - for a while. I guess whoever needed to have the last video equipment to stay competitive 30 years ago went on and bought it anyway!- Without blinking!

Edited June 15, 2015 by Lamyrada

[torstar]

I never trust bargains that are too good to be true.

 

There's so much interest in good pens in the marketplace that something is rotten if I'm getting a massive deal.

 

Mostly...

[Fabienne]

Amazon.com has become loaded with errors, most notably in the past year. There are a lot of reasons for that, some of them can be helped and some are just Murphy's Law and understandable. It is so big and so demanding that mistakes will be made because it's up to the seller to make sure that massive quantities of goods are properly listed.

[JimCouch]

A bricks and mortar store would have to honor the asking price. Why should it be ay different for Amazon? I would put up a pretty big stink over it...but that's the way I roll.

 

No No No a thousand times NO!

 

They do not! Not online, not brick & mortar, not the little corner grocery store, not anybody! If the price is a honest mistake they have no obligation to honor it. This is a big myth and it has never been true. As I stated above many companies will as an act of goodwill toward the customer.

 

There are bait and switch laws in most states that requires that retailers not knowingly advertise items for a low price they have no intention of selling at that price, but it does not apply to mistaken pricing.

 

No retailer is obligated to sell an item to you at a posted or advertised price if that price was a mistake.

[JimCouch]

There are tools for inventory control and scheduling; it is called math. You sell one, you deduct one from inventory, and there is software that does that. Not to mention a simple Excel spreadsheet.

 

 

 

Have you ever worked in wholesale or retail? Have you ever actually used these tools? I have, for well over 30 years. They are not 100% accurate, and frankly Amazon's tools for their retail associates are some of the worst out there. There are many ways with all of these tools to come up with inaccurate inventory numbers at the time a consumer looks to place an order. Believe me, I know. If folks are really interested in examples I would be happy to present some of the basic issues that come up.

[JimCouch]

Actually that is not totally true.

 

 

Perhaps the retail law is different in the US?

 

It isn't. Retailers in the US, just like the UK are not obligated to honor a pricing mistake.

[JimCouch]

If I walk into a store, and a 99.95 item is priced at 89.95, they legally must sell it to me for 89.95.

 

Wrong, this is the same as a printing error from a legal standpoint. Retailers do not have to honor a pricing error be it in the store or advertised.

[Kataphract]

No No No a thousand times NO!

 

They do not! Not online, not brick & mortar, not the little corner grocery store, not anybody! If the price is a honest mistake they have no obligation to honor it. This is a big myth and it has never been true. As I stated above many companies will as an act of goodwill toward the customer.

 

From the California Business and Professional Code:

 

12024.2. (a) It is unlawful for any person, at the time of sale of

a commodity, to do any of the following:

(1) Charge an amount greater than the price, or to compute an

amount greater than a true extension of a price per unit, that is

then advertised, posted, marked, displayed, or quoted for that

commodity.

(2) Charge an amount greater than the lowest price posted on the

commodity itself or on a shelf tag that corresponds to the commodity,

notwithstanding any limitation of the time period for which the

posted price is in effect.

( A violation of this section is a misdemeanor punishable by a

fine of not less than twenty-five dollars ($25) nor more than one

thousand dollars ($1,000), by imprisonment in the county jail for a

period not exceeding one year, or by both, if the violation is

willful or grossly negligent, or when the overcharge is more than one

dollar ($1).

 

I rather imagine each state will have it's own business law, so your milage may vary. No idea why it interpreted that as having a smiley, but it doesn't in the listing.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2015 by Kataphract

[Kataphract]

Wrong, this is the same as a printing error from a legal standpoint. Retailers do not have to honor a pricing error be it in the store or advertised.

Maybe not in Oregon, but in California, good luck to a business thinking that and then have my MBA wife walk in the store...

;-)

[Chrissy]

Wouldn't it be an offer to the world at large, and thus mean that bbs accepted their offer to sell the pen at that price?

 

No, it was an invitation to treat people to make an offer of payment at that price. The seller doesn't have to accept it at that point

[Carl Fisher - F3 Pens]

 

 

From the California Business and Professional Code:

 

12024.2. (a) It is unlawful for any person, at the time of sale of

a commodity, to do any of the following:

(1) Charge an amount greater than the price, or to compute an

amount greater than a true extension of a price per unit, that is

then advertised, posted, marked, displayed, or quoted for that

commodity.

(2) Charge an amount greater than the lowest price posted on the

commodity itself or on a shelf tag that corresponds to the commodity,

notwithstanding any limitation of the time period for which the

posted price is in effect.

( A violation of this section is a misdemeanor punishable by a

fine of not less than twenty-five dollars ($25) nor more than one

thousand dollars ($1,000), by imprisonment in the county jail for a

period not exceeding one year, or by both, if the violation is

willful or grossly negligent, or when the overcharge is more than one

dollar ($1).

 

I rather imagine each state will have it's own business law, so your milage may vary. No idea why it interpreted that as having a smiley, but it doesn't in the listing.

 

 

 

To me this means they can't sell it for higher than the displayed price, but I don't see where it states that they are forced to complete a transaction with a customer for a mis-marked price. Choosing to not complete a transaction is not the same as selling for higher than the displayed price.

 

As for Amazon, for a few years I developed competitive pricing software that scraped products and automatically dropped the price accordingly to let the seller obtain the coveted buy box. Being in that box will increase your sales exponentially but there are formulas you have to take into account in order to get there.

 

Well most software of this nature allows a seller to set a bottom price at which point the automatic repricing should stop until the product is back above the threshold. I've seen where a seller forgets to set this and it automatically reacts to someone else's error listing or liquidation pricing. Amazon will let a seller cancel a sale if it as an obvious pricing error, but it can also affect your seller rating if you can't justify it should an inquiry be sent from Amazon. They frown on automatic repricing software even though behind the scenes they provide the API tools to make software like this possible.

 

I know this can be frustrating to customers and I've been in your shoes, but sometimes it really does mean that if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Carl Fisher

[LindaM]

Whether laws or broken or not, still the seller will care what Amazon thinks of them if they want to continue selling through Amazon. I once ordered something from an affiliate for a very good price and the order was accepted and the money withdrawn. Later the seller sent me an email saying that the product was out of stock and was also out of stock from the manufacturer, so they were cancelling my order. I searched the seller's listings and found where they had re-listed it at a higher price, then checked with the manufacturer who said they had plenty of stock. So I sent the seller an email citing both facts and asked if they'd refused to honor the order because of the raised price, and copied Amazon on the email.

 

I got a reply fairly quickly that they were expecting a new shipment in any day, and would honor it then. The ship notice for it came in less than an hour later. Which had to be going for the record for a truck coming in, being unloaded, the right case of products found and opened, then the item being packed and out the door. I was quite impressed with them

[Kataphract]

There are probably laws in place now to protect stores - price tag switching, virtually any shelf listing in store can be duplicated, so enforced pricing may be on the way out. And Amazon doesn't have stickers per se. They probably do have their own business practices that third party sellers have to adhere to, and that's probably the best way to follow up on a seller retroactively stopping a sale. If the system wasn't properly updated to show no inventory (I have bought the last item in stock and noted the listing entirely disappeared, while others note out of stock), then certainly that's not the seller's fault. If it is a constant problem with a given seller, then Amazon might take action.

[LindaM]

Err, if I didn't say it plainly enough - the seller I was dealing with still had the product in stock, they just cancelled any orders at the lower price and claimed they and the manufacturer were out of stock (untruthfully), while re-listing it at a higher price.

[bbycrts]

Thanks for the input. I suppose genuine errors can be made, but if the transaction has been accepted, morally it should be honoured. The law, of course, is not necessarily moral.

 

However, thankfully in this case I am not too worried about this particular pen - another has popped up that I am more interested in ( but ain't that always the case! )

Morality (ethics, really) goes both ways. If a transaction is entered in error and the error is noted, don't you have an ethical obligation to let the seller out of the deal without taking advantage of their mistake? Why should a seller be the only honorable party in this situation?

[Cryptos]

This:

 

 

Morality (ethics, really) goes both ways. If a transaction is entered in error and the error is noted, don't you have an ethical obligation to let the seller out of the deal without taking advantage of their mistake? Why should a seller be the only honorable party in this situation?

 

Kinda says it all really.

[gordonhooker]

They sure can - just as you can cancel your order if you realise the price or postage was too high. I have had it happen to me and although you can complain the only thing you can do really especially if it across international borders is to give negative feedback on the ebay forum.

[gordonhooker]

Morality (ethics, really) goes both ways. If a transaction is entered in error and the error is noted, don't you have an ethical obligation to let the seller out of the deal without taking advantage of their mistake? Why should a seller be the only honorable party in this situation?

 

Spot on I agree with you totally....