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heapsort

245 posts

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#242149 13-Oct-2018 10:11
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Went shopping for a new hardware store item online this morning, and decided what I wanted. Same exact model number, $794 at Bunnings and $849 at Mitre 10 where they claim to beat a competitor price by 15%. Off to Mitre 10 we go, where it is in stock and $849 on the ticket.

 

While I'm still in the aisle with a salesman, I mentioned the cheaper price at Bunnings. He said, "Yep we'll beat that." Should be hassle free, right?

 

Up at the customer service desk, he does a competitor website lookup and tells the staff member at a sales terminal it's $794 there. She replied it's $794 here too. I looked a bit puzzled. "We have it the same price here," she reiterated.

 

"But it's not the same price. It's a higher price in the aisle and on your website," I said.

 

She started muttering some jargon about "off promo" and something else I didn't quite catch. He said, "we'll do you a deal". Okay then. After some entering data, he informed me "the best deal we can do is $790."

 

Wow. A whole $4 cheaper than their sale price that only they can see. I said nothing, and just gave a slight "really?" look. (I've almost never bothered with price beating offers before, but I wasn't born yesterday.)

 

One brief pause later, "We will honour the fifteen per cent because we didn't have the sale tag up yet." Riiiight, that must be it. No sale tag. Not on your website either. (For what it's worth, an online price history chart shows the competitor price had dropped from $849 to $794 more than a week earlier - but I hadn't checked that at the time.)

 

Paid $675, happy with that. But I can't help but wonder what price I would have seen on the little screen if I'd kept silent about competitor's price until they handed the Eftpos keypad to me.

 

Anyone else here had a price beat guarantee met with a "we've already got the same price" claim that they found a little hard to believe?


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RunningMan
8955 posts

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  #2107179 13-Oct-2018 10:14
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The usual one they pull is having different model numbers for the same product, depending on which retailer is stocking it.




SirHumphreyAppleby
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  #2107194 13-Oct-2018 10:42
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I've found Mitre 10 to be good with price matching. I had one experience where the customer service person called the other store and said "This is Mitre 10 *******, what's your price for...?", which obviously meant they were going to be told the full retail price, not what was listed on the site or what I had been quoted. In that case, I wasn't actually requesting they beat the price, only match it because they had the item in stock and the other store didn't. After getting someone else involved from the relevant department, who went and saw their manager, they offered me the item for the price of a cheaper model on the competitor's Webpage I'd printed out, which actually worked out to be a discount of more than 15%.

 

Every other time, they've just looked on the Website or taken my word for it.


Rikkitic
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  #2107197 13-Oct-2018 10:51
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I did a price match with them once. They rang the competitor, verified the price, and gave me the discount with no hassle, though the lady did not appear too pleased about it.

 

 





Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

 


 




heapsort

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  #2107214 13-Oct-2018 11:44
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Thanks for the replies. Maybe I'm a cynic, but there was little chance of me believing their claim that they had already matched the competitor price and were just a bit slow to change the price tag. Finding out after I'd bought it that the competitor price had been cheaper for more than a week supported my belief.

 

Anyway, I got the 15% and I'm happy with that.


sidefx
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  #2107215 13-Oct-2018 11:45
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Sounds like they did the right thing in the end, without too much arguing, and probably made very little profit (or even a loss)?   

 

TBH I'd be pretty happy with that...





"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there."         | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
              - Richard Feynman


rphenix
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  #2107222 13-Oct-2018 12:12
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sidefx:

 

Sounds like they did the right thing in the end, without too much arguing, and probably made very little profit (or even a loss)?   

 

 

Quite likely a loss.


logo
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  #2107254 13-Oct-2018 13:32
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I've found Mitre 10 are pretty honest with their price beating by 15% policy however they are pretty switched on with their competitors pricing.

 


Case in point, a month ago I was looking for a new insinkerator. HN had it on sale. Checked M10 website and it was more expensive - bongo! Went down to M10 and was about to head to the counter and get the 15% off but thought I'd check if they had it in stock. Found all of the insinkerators had reduced and were beating HN by $1 or so - website still at the old price though. Damn but fair game I guess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


throbb
675 posts

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  #2107274 13-Oct-2018 15:35
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sidefx:

Sounds like they did the right thing in the end, without too much arguing, and probably made very little profit (or even a loss)?   


TBH I'd be pretty happy with that...



In retail changing prices in the system is easy and quite often automated, especially for a price drop(no disadvantage for a customer to be charged less than the price on a ticket), the hardest part is getting a human to change the ticket in the store, quite often there are multiple facing amd locations to chane and its easy to miss some.

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