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| The Staples Quickbooks Pro 2012 Promotion |
The problem is that at 8:45am I opened the email and tried to buy the Quickbooks Pro 2012 package. The Staples website informed me that the offer at sold out. This less than 3 hours after issuing the email - and before many businesses in the UK had actually opened.
I immediately contacted Staples via email only to be told by customer services that the promotion had indeed sold out!
The out of stock had obviously not been communicated to the Staples online marketing people. The Quickbooks offer shot on the left was taken at 10:00am, whilst the promotion was still live on the Staples website. I suspect that the whole promotion has been entered into knowing that the stock was insufficient. Whether such a promotion is illegal, I'm not sure. But it does seem very odd to target a promotion at businesses that sells out before most of them are open and before they are able to action any response.
The Quickbooks promotion image can be expanded. It states in small print that the offer is available whilst stocks last. But as mentioned the image was taken at 10:00 - 1 hour and 15 minutes after I had tried to buy the product and the Staples website stated they had no more stock. Whether legal action can be taken against Staples is a matter for the advertising authorities. However, this cheap tactic just diminishes the status of Staples as a credible small business supplier.
P.S. Staples even had the cheek to issue a Tweet promoting the offer at around 9:45. This is at least one hour after the stock of Quickbooks Pro 2012 had run out. The tweet was till up, without correction, at 10:45.
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| Staples Tweet of the Quickbooks Pro 2012 Offer - at 9:45 |
P.P.S. There is now a thread about the Staples Quickbooks Pro 2012 offer on UK Business Forum. Apparently Amazon have the same Quickbooks offer but the product is in stock.
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