Another 11 Cents Well-Spent
July 13th, 2007This is turning out to be a cheap week! After spending 48 cents for school supplies at Staples, I placed an order with LaRedoute for 11 tank tops for $.11 shipped yesterday. Yep, a dime and a penny. It certainly sounds like a pricing error, but the word on Slickdeals is that this “1-cent tanks” offer was a legit promotion, combined with a free shipping code. Ours is not to reason why…
My order is currently listed as being processed to ship, so it looks like LaRedoute is planning to fill it. I wouldn’t whine if they chose to cancel it though (if the listed price were an error). I know a lot of internet shoppers feel strongly that companies should live up to their listed price, and I think they should, but mistakes happen. And it can have devastating consequences when an internet retailer makes a price mistake that is mercilessly swooped upon and generally abused by deal-hawks from sites like Slickdeals. As long as they ‘fess up and don’t charge my credit card, the companies doesn’t hear from me and I move on to the next deal. The two unacceptable solutions are canceling the order and still charging me, or filling my order but charging a higher price than I agreed to pay.
And here’s a Slickdeals usage tip: If you have an extra minute while checking the site, scan the first page of the Hot Deals forum in addition to the front page. That’s where I found this deal, shortly before it was promoted. I stumbled across it early enough to find a wide selection in my size. Soon, a thread that was only 3 pages suddenly jumped to 15 pages long. When a deal makes the front page, there’s a mad scramble by the general internet community to get in on it. By finding bargains before they hit the front page, you have a much better chance of finding the items in stock and the website’s servers not overloaded.
Why didn’t I post about this yesterday? Normally, this type of deal I would post right away, but I only happened to find it as we were walking out the door for dinner with friends. Sorry!
(ETA: There are still some styles available in various sizes, check out the Wiki on Slickdeals and do some digging!)