Now, let me begin my tale of purchasing a new Mac Mini from Amazon.ca (the Canadian wing of Amazon.com). Last Friday, my business partner called me after I had left the studio to inform me that Amazon.ca was getting rid of it’s stock of 2006, Intel Core Duo, Mac Mini units, for $66. $66, you might ask?? Well, let’s get a few things out of the way first: they are 3-year old machines, they had measly 80GB HD’s and only 512MB of memory. Too be honest, I wouldn’t have paid much more than $150-$200 for one of these—it simply would not have been worth it in my eyes. Let’s be honest, they are not the workhorse machine I would need.
So, I ordered one, and paid an extra $40 for the fastest express next-day shipping. My partner bought 4 units, thinking they would make excellent Xmas presents for his still-PC-using family. So, orders placed, confirmation emails received from Amazon—nothing left to do but wait.
Until this morning—I get an email from a much respected design colleague (who also purchased several units) informing me that Amazon.ca has cancelled all Mac Mini orders, and he only found out by logging-in to his account to check on the order status and estimated delivery date. I did the same. Order cancelled. No explanation. Nothing. Bullshit.
Do you think Amazon.ca prominently displays the support phone # anywhere the human eye could find? Yah, exactly. So, after sifting through page-after-page of bullshit FAQ’s and “help” sections, I found it—the call-back function. The support representative was pleasant enough—but just as I though, she had no real answers, other than it was a mistake. A mistake? Your goddamn right it was a mistake, and you should honour it—if I walk into Chapters, see a book priced at $12.99, bring a book to the cash, and when it gets rung-in, the cash register reads $29.99—Chapters will honour the mistake, and you get the book at the sticker price. That is my experience, at least, and it’s happened more than once to me.
Amazon—you failed us. You listed product at a price (some believe a price “to-good-to-be-true”, but for a 3-year old low-end Mac Mini, I view more as a “good deal”), we made our purchases, and you pulled the plug—and sent ZERO notification. The support rep claimed that notification emails were going to be sent, but she had no idea when—awesome. Top-notch.
Here’s where we are going to get even, and then some. I feel that Analogue has a great network of influential bloggers, social media professionals, and writers—all with significant reach and influence. We are sending this story to as many of these internet professionals as we can—and believe me, Amazon.ca, there are plenty.
Amazon.ca, I just want you to be very, very, very clear on something here: these words will be read by many, many, many people—at a time of year that can make-or-break a company: the holiday sales period.
My business partner has just informed me that he has read a forum post, where Amazon.ca is apologizing for the Mac Mini error, and offering a $10 coupon to affected customers. $10 coupon? Take it deep, Amazon. You are nothing more than a swarthy rogue trying to cover your ass in any way you can—and then you have the balls to offer a measly $10 credit.
Let’s recap: order was placed at 6PM, Friday November 27th, 2009. Today is Wednesday December 2nd, 2009, and NONE of us have received any official communication from Amazon.ca on the matter—nothing.
In this day-and-age, brands live and die in the public realm, and Amazon.ca—I hope you die a slow, public death as a company. I will never purchase anything from any Amazon-related entity, ever. Nor will my family, my wife’s family, work colleagues, and hopefully… hopefully—several thousand others that read these words, and heed my warning about your complete lack of ethics.
Wake-up, Amazon.ca, we have the power now—and yer’ gonna’ feel it. Deep.
PS: I had an experience with Griffin Technology recently. I purchased a pair of TuneBuds Mobile iPod headphones. They sucked, hard. I sent them back, thinking they were defective. Griffin sent a new pair, same poor-quality sound. What did Griffin Technology do? They offered me ANYTHING on the Griffin website, of equal or lesser value. Amazon: wake-up, and learn…
Amazon might very well blow us off, but that would be a big mistake…
Posted by December 2, 2009 permalink
Wahhhhhhhhhhhhh
No one cares about you or your pathetic crusade. Amazon is the king of Internet merchants. Your efforts are futile.
If you want to be taken seriously, you should write in a more professional manner. Taking on Amazon and being treated legitimately would be easier if you didn’t say stuff like “take it deep” and “they sucked hard.” It’s not even difficult to write slightly more eloquently.
Also it takes 2 clicks to find a support number. Help, and then “Contact Us” on the right.
So you didn’t get a great deal on a product that (let’s get real) doesn’t sell for anywhere near what you consider reasonable (they’re macs after all) and you think Amazon owes you something? What entitlement! I had two of these canceled on me, but I’m not going to make a big stink out of it. Errors happen, just because they’re a large corporation doesn’t mean you are any more entitled to something in return than if it happened at a local mom and pop shop that couldn’t afford to absorb such a clerical error, and in such quantities!
Thanks for the comments.
Are you shitting me? If you thought you were going to get this for $60.00 bucks, you’re the King of the Douches. Actually after reading this horribly put together rant, I can say that you truly are – King of the Douches. I hope Jeff Bezos comes to your house and poops on your porch.
Damn Canadians!
GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!
Phil
Let me call the wahhhh-bulance for Analogue. Let’s take this step-by-step…
1. For starters, they’re Amazon, you’re some little blog looking for traffic. You’re not going to be able to take on Amazon.
2. They made a pricing mistake and you compare it to some Canadian Bookstore. First of all, the Canadian bookstore can probably sell you one copy of book and take a hit on it. You expect Amazon to sell they’re entire stock of the computer at a loss? Really? …really?
3. To be honest, alarm bells should have been ringing when you saw the deal posted. It’s not deal-of-the-lifetime, but it’s still a good enough deal to make you think, “hmmm…. this is probably a price mistake”. Amazon sells MILLIONS of products; they don’t have people manually setting each product price, it’s done by complicated algorithms and XML sheets. In the VERY RARE instance of a mistake, they cancel the orders and apologize.
4. THIS is an assumption, but… I figure that you assumed this was a price mistake. Why? Because you ordered it overnight… what most people trying to exploit the system do. See if you can get one really fast before Amazon “catches on”, huh? FSSS shipping would have sufficed before X-mas, but no, you tried to grab some before Amazon caught on to their mistake. Then they did and you cry about it? Really? …really?
5. You sound like a damn idiot blabbering about “AMAZON WILL FEEL THIS DEEP!!!”. Welcome to the internet. Amazon, like all stores, make mistakes and no, they’re not going to absorb the cost on each one. They gave to you a store credit and, to be honest, I think that was more than you deserved. Grow up and quit being such a baby.
and yet, somehow, life goes on…
Wow, a deal too good to be true was. Amazing.
Alex
1. I was wondering if you could help me with some SEO expertise.
2. I was wondering how your services “achieve” balance with your websites.
3. Welcome to the internet. Where you can’t hide if you’re an untalented web “designer”.
I bought the same Mac and just received an email saying that the order was cancelled… Never heard of the 10$ cupon. When I bought this mac mini, I did know there was a BIG chance that there was an error and that the order will be cancelled sooner or later… So there wasn’t a big surprise for me.
But I thought that after buying something and having the receipt, they would some how, honour the mistake. Heard Future Shop had done the same “error” and they had to honor their mistake…
lets cry about a price mistake, happens EVERY day on the deal sites.
you’re basically ordering a cancellation email when you order something online for a price that is not conceivable.
Amazon clearly states they are not responsible for pricing errors, this has been the case for years and years and years – even the sunday sale papers print this text in the sale ads.
Amazon was nice and offered these $10 credits, I didn’t know they were doing that till i read your blog post. Best Buy does this as well, they could just send you an email saying “oops sorry, someone forgot the 1 at the front of the price” and be done with it.
i bought one too but didn’t really expect to get it. I’ve seen them make similar mistakes and not really do anything about it. was not surprised. do not care.