Let the Buyer Beware

I feel disgusted. Readers, decide for yourself whether this is ethical marketing or not.

Firstly, this is a special offer for shoes at the ground floor of a shopping mall. All the shoes are put on display and categorised according to sale price, with placards displaying the offer price in huge letters that can be clearly read from the third floor.

Among the 'special offers' there was this group of shoes and sandals with the placard marked "$19.90", the price as I've said was in huge numerals that were visible from the 3rd floor. All the shoes in that category (which were very clearly segregated from the other shoes since they were placed on a separate platform) did not carry any price tags, nor any markings as to price.

So you would have thought that all those shoes were selling at $19.90?

Well, if you said yes, then you are terribly wrong.

For under the huge number "19.90", there was also this phrase in capitals, font size 14 or 16, that said "selected items" underneath. Font size 16 is quite big, but when you have it beneath a huge "19.90" that can be clearly read from a height of 3 stories, how many would actually notice the 'fine print'? And with no separate price tags on the shoes, how would you know that there are different prices if you didn't even manage to notice this disclaimer?

How did I know all of this? Because I saw the "$19.90" figure as I was travelling down the escalator to the ground floor. I completely missed the disclaimer of 'selected items' and seeing no price tags to the contrary, assumed most wrongly that everything on that particular display was selling at $19.90. Only after paying for a pair of sandals picked from that display that I realised that the sandals cost $39.90.

This may not be negligent misrepresentation or even misrepresentation, but talk about misleading representation. This is the first time I have ever encountered such sales tactics that not only attract customers but 'mislead' them given the lack of appropriate emphasis on that fact that the sale price only applies to half of the items on display.

$39.90 for a pair of sandals. Ouch. These sandals had better last at least a year of regular use.

DreamCatcher