News Pricing glitch could bankrupt Amazon sellers this Xmas

Damn I always miss out on these things.

 

You're not the only one

 

I only hope that this hurts Amazon more than it hurts the many small companies and private sellers using their services. For a small business this could potentially decimate their finances.

 

It doesn't hurt Amazon at all. It is the fault of the "small companies and private sellers" who used the Repricer 3rd party service. So if someone will have bad day, then it is the company making the Repricer service and those small companies and private sellers, who used it.

 

I hope Amazon will step in and help clean the mess up. They have the resources to do so.

 

yes but I doubt they will - it wasn't their` software which caused this - it was a 3rd party app ; and that company could well be liable - and soon bankrupt as well

 

Me too

 

According to the response from RepricerExpress's CEO, "We have received communication that Amazon will not penalise sellers for this error." From reading the thread further, it looks as though Amazon are allowing sellers to cancel 1p orders and deleting any arising negative feedback. The problem is that some sellers have already had products ship at 1p, and these can't be cancelled.

Still, like Harlequin says, it doesn't reflect well on RepricerExpress and I'm sure that they'll soon be receiving letters from solicitors around the country for compensation and claims for lost revenue. I wouldn't be surprised if the filed for bankruptcy in the next couple of weeks...

 

it`ll be those `fulfilled by amazon` resellers which cant cancel - the ones who ship out themselves will cancel.

 

Me three...

 

Of course this has the potential to hurt amazon! Pretty sure they make a killing off third party sellers. Essentially right now they have a bunch important angry customers. New sellers will be put off selling on amazon, and the sellers affected will be angry and or bankrupt.

 

Do they have a legal obligation? I hope RepricerExpress goes under

 

Again, what does have this to do with Amazon ? This is exactly the same situation as if you would put a ebay bot on item with no upper limit, and you would end up bidding 1 million euros on a sheet of paper - because someone else was stupid to set their bot with same stupid parameters.

It was the seller (their bot) who lovered the item price to such low price, not amazon. Amazon just fulfilled the consumer order for the price set by the seller.

 

Exactly. Amazon don't have to do anything, but they are helping where they can, so kudos to them.

The real victims are the sellers who use Amazon for shipping, as lots of their orders were actually fulfilled before they noticed anything was wrong. Amazon have cancelled orders when asked, but often it's been too late as all or a large proportion of orders had already been sent out.

Why? If they go under (which is high possibility), the sellers will have no recourse for compensation, which means that they will go under as well.

 

What are the rules on this kind of thing? If I had bought something at a ridiculously low price and then was told it was an error and wouldn't be honoured, I'd just think 'fair enough'.

 

Also calling for a faceless organisation to go under is all well and good in principle, but they have employees too, many would have had nothing to do with the 'glitch'.

I am curious to see what the glitch actually was, anyone who writes software will know how relatively trivial changes can have a very large impact somewhere down the line. I would hope that software which is essentially 'mission critical' would have some adequate testing and a decent version control process that would see anything checked into what would become the production code reviewed and checked separately.

 

One would have thought so! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30467692

Incredible, though, the range of responses here. People upset because they didn't get chance to take advantage of a glitch that affects small businesses - even though we should be doing what we can to support them. People bitching about Amazon because, oooh, Amazon...the bad guys (even though they only got where they are today because people want things cheaper); People complaining about the software company, even though nobody forced sellers to use it. People questioning the law - who's to blame? Who can sue who?

Funny, nobody seems to be complaining about the lazy sellers using software to artificially bloat their prices according to how many have been sold...as is their prerogative.

I mean, come on people...take it easy. Not everyone needs to be sued or boycotted. Sometimes stuff just happens.

 

there are plenty of people who still think you have to sell at the price on show, but if you go into a shop, and something is mispriced, the shop can refuse to sell at that price, and correct any error once made aware of it.

 

An offer to sell is considered an 'Invitation to Treat', and:

(Yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but I am busy this morning)