I used to work for a global retailer and yes, pricing errors do occur all the time. However, it was very rare that a pricing error would go undiscovered for very long since the store’s actual inventory would be depleted in a heartbeat. This would lead to the issuance of ‘rain-checks’ within an hour or so of opening, notifying the store management of the blunder. This, in turn, would lead to a ‘ad correction’ notice being displayed in the front window. Legally, the store is now covered. In addition, it was very impractical for a disgruntled shopper to find 100’s of other disgruntled shoppers in the same predicament. The net changes this scenario, with shopping models like Buy.com allowing shoppers to see how many other folks are ‘in line’ on an item and allowing them an easy way to create a ‘collective gripe’ about the pricing error. The problem I always have with on-line shopping models is that they think that they are SO different that they don’t have similar rain-check policies, etc. Offline or on, the consumer is already trained to expect a certain process to be in place. The fundamental flaw with most etailers is that they don’t have a CLUE about retail….the “e” doesn’t change that.

-Mike