Oops. Twitter was on fire this morning with reports that Dick Smith’s New Zealand online store was only asking for delivery costs on any purchase, making big ticket items like TVs and laptops next to free. As you’d expect, the web swarmed, and the Techxperts responded: sorry, no freebies for you. Updated!
@Steffen_ tweeted: “Well, my order just went through. 27inch iMac. Total price: $4.95. Come on Dick Smith, be a good sport and honour it. Haha.” Alas, @DickSmithNZ has tweeted a mass response:
“For orders placed we will be in contact with you to confirm cancellation or whether you would like the items at their correct pricing.”
Update: Dick Smith NZ has now confirmed that the 60 affected customers will each get a 10 per cent discount for their troubles.
We were debating this in the Gizmodo newsroom, and it seems that when you see a price in store, you lock in that “offer” simply by walking to the cash register. But online, (even in Australia) the retailer can cancel orders if they haven’t charged your card yet, or if they can show that the price error was so drastic that most reasonable users would have known there had been a mistake. Either way, Dick Smith NZ’s web site is still under maintenance. [Dick Smith NZ]