Razer Mistakenly Posts Coupon Code For 90% Discount, Decides To Honor It
We occasionally hear about companies mis-labeling a product for significantly less than the retail price then canceling orders once the error is discovered. In spite of what a lot of people believe, this is generally not bait-and-switch and the retailer is not legally obliged to honor the incorrect price. Most companies just cancel orders and weather the slings and arrows of outraged bargain-hunters, but one has decided to just say “enjoy the discount.”
Earlier this week, it looked like someone at computer peripheral company Razer had goofed and released a coupon code for 90% off purchases through the company’s UK Razerzone store.
Within hours, the store was flooded with orders from customers hoping to cash in on the mistake. But rather than cancel these orders and apologize, the CEO for Razer says his company is going to honor most of the purchases even though it doesn’t have to.
“This coupon code was NOT authorized nor approved by Razer and was generated by a third party to test our shopping cart,” wrote CEO Min-Liang Tan on his Facebook page this morning.
“While we have the option of cancelling the orders legally, we’ve always had a customer comes first policy at Razer,” continues Tan, “and in respect of this incident, we have decided to honor the orders that were placed using the unauthorized code by Razer fans buying single products for their own use.”
Tan goes on to explain that doing so will “likely cost us an insane amount of losses” and that Razer won’t be honoring all orders, as some people attempted to buy multiple units of the same item.
“For orders in the multiples of units for a single product, we will still give each an opportunity to purchase one item of each product ordered at the 90% off discount but not for multiple units of the same product,” he explains. “Our focus is on doing the right thing for our fans, the gamers and the community, not for resellers or users to profit from this. That’s not gaming, that’s not our deal.”
He cautions that it could take weeks — and maybe months in some cases — to fulfill all the orders, as a number of items purchased during the rush were already on back-order.
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