The Y19,800 (US$180) price was posted on Oct. 31 by Marubeni and went unnoticed by the company for three days, but not by Internet posters on bulletin boards, leading to 1,500 orders.
Marubeni initially told customers it would cancel all orders but after the prospective buyers complained, decided to honor all 1,500 orders. A company spokesman told Kyodo News, a Japanese newswire, that the company prefers to "place emphasis on public trust".
Marubeni is unusual for honoring the mislisted price. While price-listing errors are common in Internet shopping, sellers usually cancel the orders or offer a discount instead. Sites like FatWallet.com track sales offers and online consumers can quickly flood a mistaken price offering.
Amazon earlier this year received thousands of orders for a high-end cell phone that appeared to be free, and Dell has been hit by price-listing problems, including its Asia Pacific Unit. Wrong listings for Dell notebooks in Asia have twice occurred and when customer payments had been processed, the transaction was honored.
In January this year, Hewlett-Packard and its online retailer Digiland refused to honor 4,000 offers to buy a S$4,000 (US$2,353) color laser printer accidentally listed at S$66 (US$39) on HP's Singapore retail Web site.
Play video
Wrong price, but deals are honored
How come Dell Taiwan cancel all orders twice in one month ?
Posted by anonymous on Tuesday, July 07 2009 10:50 AM