Sears withdraw $69 iPad 2 offer leaving customers in lurch

Someone at Sears needs to get involved as they let a monumental error escape with one of their smaller vendor partners late last week, offering the iPad 2 for only $69.

Many people thought they might be onto a good deal as Sears would be forced to sell orders at the quoted price, but this is not the case. They issued an apology just before the weekend, but have decided not to fulfill the offer, instead cancelling all orders.

The Sears statement said “We want you to know that, unfortunately, today one of the Marketplace third party sellers told us that they mistakenly posted incorrect pricing information on two Apple iPad models on the Marketplace portion of the website. If you purchased either of these products recently, your order has been cancelled and your account will be credited.”

While it is easy enough to make a typo, the problem now is that the public are furious that Sears are not honoring the $69 offer price. While they would lose a lot of money, some customers did receive confirmation emails from both Sears and Paypal. It wasn't a ‘direct' Sears deal, but should they be held ultimately responsible?

The news last week was that big a deal that it was reported on Facebook and Twitter, with thousands of people hitting the store immediately, trying to land a bargain. The issue is more complicated however as according to reports online competitor Best Buy apparently tried to honor the reduced price via their matching system, for several hours.

This has opened up a hornet's nest of debate as customers are complaining that Sears are letting small vendors take control over their system then not helping them resolve the issues. This particular issue was connected with vendor GSM on Sale, who are now ‘closed for maintenance'.

Kitguru says: Should Sears have tighter regulations with their small vendor partners?

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