Midway's Printed Flyer Prices Not Honored

[StuckInMA]

I don't reload so sorry for my ignorance, but is this the same thing only a lot cheaper given it's per 1,000?

Oregon Trail Laser-Cast Bullets - Per 1000
Item number:IH - 213648
Reg:$65.99
Sale: $61.99
BULLET TYPE: 45LC-250GRNFP 1000
This item is on backorder. Cabela's estimates it will take 1-2 weeks to ship this product.

 

[Conqueror]

Sorry, I can't fault Midway for this. They make it plain right on the flier that you might call and get a different price. While that may be disappointing to you, it is in no way the result of deception or businesss malpractice by Midway.

Now, you're free to not like it, but this is a common business practice in all industries, and a really immature reason to stop doing business with Midway. I'd bet dollars to dimes that the frequency with which Midway doesn't honor advertised prices is a tiny fraction of a percent. I'd rather have an occasional disappointment like this than a catalog full of "call for price." And if Midway still has the best prices on other things you want, you'd be a fool to buy those things elsewhere. By your own admission, your good experiences with Midway FAR FAR FAR outweigh the bad. Expecting 100% perfection is unreasonable and childish.

Whoever it was that says this is false advertising, and that companies must honor any advertised price, is totally running his mouth without a clue. Read the fine print on any flyer you get, it'll say something like "Not responsible for typographical errors." An employee sticking the wrong pricetag on something does not obligate a company to honor that price. It's a human error, nothing more, and there is no contract or obligation therein.

 

[mpmarty]

OK, so a major automobile manufacturer states the MPG rating is 35 city and 55 highway and "your mileage may vary". You buy the vehicle and get 15/20 MPG city/highway. You shut up and stay loyal to that auto maker? Bull****!! This is the same thing, send out the bait and then sink the hook.

 

[Conqueror]

^^^That's a really poor analogy. Getting bad mileage is a reflection of the driver, not the car company. If you have a lead foot, don't keep enough air in your tires, etc. you will get crappy mileage. None of that would be toyota's fault. And no one gets listed mileage anyway since the EPA's measurement methodology isn't realistic.

Do you get pissed if you don't get exactly the velocities listed in your reloading manual? Do you get pissed if your frozen pizza takes an extra 5 minutes to cook than what the box says? Do you get pissed when your michelins last 55,000 miles instead of 60,000? Your mileage does vary, it's called LIFE, and expecting everything you buy or use to be exactly as described is the height of naivete.

 

[siglite]

expecting everything you buy or use to be exactly as described is the height of naivete.

Except the price. I expect the price to be exactly as described, every time.

 

[Conqueror]

Then you are naive. When the retailer itself tells you that the price may vary on the exact same piece of paper where you read the price, then only a fool would expect the price never to vary.

 

[SSN Vet]

fortunately, it's still a free country....

and you can take your business elsewhere.

I'm a repeat Midway customer because they routinely have the lowest prices and their selection is awesome......with most items stocked for immediate delivery.

I'm glad they didn't cave in to your whining, because if they sell product at a loss every time they get stuck with a price increase from their suppliers, they'll either...

a.) have to raise their prices to stay afloat

or

b.) close their doors

You go build a profitable and solid business in a cut throat market and I suspect your policy will be exactly the same.

 

[strat81]

I think there are a few things we all agree with:
1) Midway isn't doing anything illegal. Disclaimers, blah blah blah.
2) Midway deserves to make a profit.
3) Fliers aren't designed & printed the day before they are mailed, nor are they capable of producing "real time" prices.

I think the issue munk is driving at, and rightfully so, is that Midway is advertising -in print- a product that is known to be susceptible to drastic price increases.

Imagine if Merrill Lynch operated the same way. They'd send you a flier and the flier would say "Google Stock: $450 per share!" You'd call to buy it since it's over $600/share today and they said "Sorry, prices went up."

If the company knows prices are volatile, they should not advertise those prices in print.

 

[MakAttak]

It seems to me that American Business has changed it's base policy to, "Customers are always right... except for when they disagree with us, then they can go to hell."
It use to be that managers knew that losing $20 on a purchase to make a loyal customer happy was worth 10-100x that in the continued business as well as all the business that satisfied customer will send your way when he runs into people who are looking to buy something that you sell.

Well, I think the reason for this is a change in consumers. People AREN'T loyal anymore. People can, very easily, search for the cheapest price and go to that store/website. As a result, if the company accepted a significant loss like this, they would not gain/retain customers as the people would buy now at the low low price and leave once they find a lower price elsewhere.
This is the problem. People expect to be treated the same by companies when they don't treat companies the same way anymore. It's not the companies are bad, it's just what made for good business in the past does not make for good business now, ESPECIALLY for companies whose good has perfect substitutes, such as bullet/reloading materials.
For companies that brand themselves so that they have no perfect substitutes, such as firearms manufacturers, these DO attract loyal customers it is eminently STUPID to blow off your customers. Customer service there does retain customers and increase your loyalty. Hence, I find Midways actions perfectly understandable, even if I don't like it.
When companies compete for business by offering the lowest price, don't expect service to be that good as well.

 

[Pdave]

To me the simple solution would be, if Midway is going to put an item in their sales flyer and print it month in advance, they should negotiate the price with the manufactuer at the same time so they can honor the price through the printed sales date. Problem solved!

 

[Meatco]

Another who sides with Monk!


Midway's practice of changing prices from their sale circular is misleading!

As the owner of a large Meat packing plant in the West, I can tell you if there is an error in our printed prices, we will let our customers know there was an error in our weekly sale sheet, and that the price will take a larger hike the following week. We absorb our loss (sometimes small, sometimes huge), and build our customer relations.

With this policy, we have grown from a small Mom & Pop business to one of the largest privately owned Meat Packing plants here on the West coast.

Makes sense to me!


Richard

 

[07Lway]

I think the issue munk is driving at, and rightfully so, is that Midway is advertising -in print- a product that is known to be susceptible to drastic price increases.

That would be my biggest issue. I don't understand why they would continue to post the prices of something that they know is going to be outdated when it finally hits the consumers. That seems like bad business practices to me. My real problem here is their stubbornness to not understand that on the 1% of items that do fluctuate regularly in price, they should stop posting it.

 

[Smurfslayer]

difficult

Page 24 of the flyer clearly says:
Prices, Policies and Terms
Prices, specifications and availability are subject to change without notice.

Page 24? A little less than up front.

There are a number of things here. 1st, OP is correct to be at least a little steamed. The response, though taking some heat, did give the vendor's number to verify Midway's claim. A lot of times in customer service you don't always have the level of control over a situation you would like and some corporate nincompoop saddles you with a practice or policy which completely hamstrings the C/S rep. It's tough to say if that's all of what happened here, but you can be sure that the C/S guy isn't the guy who markets the products, or gets the flyers sent out.

Imagine if you will this situation. Customer calls ABC reloading and says 'hey, your web ordering thing isn't working, can you help me get this stuff ordered?' C/S: "I can do the order by phone, but another group handles the web site support and I am not authorized to work on it. More importantly, the web site support is only available by email and even I can't get a hold of them by phone. Honestly, I don't even know who they are because they never "sign" their correspondence. Anyway, let me take your order...."

Think that's out of the realm of today's world? Think again.

Now if the C/S guy was quick on his feet so to speak he would have looked at the price vs. advertised ( there's no excuse not to know this since they have such a state of the art system ) and immediately freeze the inventory, and lie to the customer "I apologize Mr. Munk, but we're apparently out of those products". It may have diffused the situation or not, but probably better than the outcome. Of course that's the difficulty of C/S, you never know who's had a bad day, when one of your long time customers will "not get" your sense of humor, or be put off by something.

A good company will respond to "I'm not satisfied with this response. I realize the circumstances but I feel this is unduly punishing me and I want to speak to a supervisor". I suggest giving them the opportunity to take your input and make the process better. Generally, a company willing to listen to my complaint and attempt to make changes, I will decline financial offers unless that is the actual nature of the complaint. IOW, in your case I would decline a reduced price or discount to "make it right" and instead ask that the price disclaimers be more prominent, C/S have more latitude to address these issues immediately, etc. JMHO...

Now, as for the CC theft, totally inexcusable.

 

[azredhawk44]

take a look at the price of lead over the last 2 years and tell me its not a factor.

In Dec 2005, lead cost about $0.65 per pound.

In November 2007, lead costs about $1.34 a pound.

In the OP's original order of 500 250gr bullets, he is requesting 125,000 grains of lead. 17.85 pounds. 18 pounds of lead in 2005 cost $11.70. 18 pounds of lead today costs $24.12.

Lead cost $0.83 per pound in August of this year. 18 pounds at that price is $14.94.

There's about a $9 cost differential between supply costs.

The midway rep said the price was raised from $47 to $73, a difference of $26.

That's too much of a markup... hence a declaration of price gouging is well justified IMO.

MasterCast can afford to sell me bullets for quite a bit less. So it isn't materials cost.

It's gouging.

 

[munk]

"I think the issue munk is driving at, and rightfully so, is that Midway is advertising -in print- a product that is known to be susceptible to drastic price increases. Strat81"


Let there be Light. Yes. And everytime it happens Midway gets to say, "Gee whiz, the printing was too slow to keep up with this; sorry."

And this is very important: the customer finds this out as he's buying from Midway. He's already there. Sales experts will tell you that's 90% of the battle- getting the customer with his checkbook out, ready. Midway knows this. So, in effect, they're content with what amounts to a defacto false advertisement. It's cost effective.

Listen to this from another poster: "As the owner of a large Meat packing plant in the West, I can tell you if there is an error in our printed prices, we will let our customers know there was an error in our weekly sale sheet, and that the price will take a larger hike the following week. We absorb our loss (sometimes small, sometimes huge), and build our customer relations.

With this policy, we have grown from a small Mom & Pop business to one of the largest privately owned Meat Packing plants here on the West coast.

Makes sense to me!


Richard"


Richard has it right. Midway doesn't want to do it that way and that's their right under a free market. Who would you more willingly exchange money for goods with, Midway or Richard?

It's pretty simple. Someone sends an ad to my house with prices they know are not true before they've even printed, I dont' have to do business with them.
I brought this up to see what you all thought. Some of you attacked the messenger. Interesting. Right before change the status quo is vigoriously defended.

Someone used a auto gas millage varience as an analogy. Not good, because such things do vary- like the edge usefullness of a knife under consumer conditions- these are things the consumer has control over to at least a limited extent. Let's say you went to the car lot after an ad told you about a certain price. After driving the car, spending two hours on the lot discussing the sale, you'd sat down to sign only to learn it was 4 thousand dollars more than advertised. That's called bait and switch. Maybe there was only one auto with the advertised price. Maybe 2 months ago on a certain day the price Midway used was valid, but they knew it wouldn't stay valid by the time the ad came out.

(Actually, the auto industry is a poor one to use for my example, because they're not bound by the same contractual obligations as other industries-a left over from the horse trading days.)

That may be legal, but in my personal opinion not moral, and I've the ability to decide who gets money for shooting supplies. That's not naive, or whining.

When I can, I direct my household monies to companies I approve of. Hasn't anyone here chose not to buy Levis because of their antigun money to anti gun causes? Did anyone call you whining when you rejected Levis? Is it whining not to want Hillary Clinton because of her anti gun stand?

Richard of the west coast has it right. He has chosen to honor a higher level of respect with his customer. Midway has choosen to ignore this and take the loss. They figure the loss is not worth bothering with.

It's been an interesting thread.


munk

 

[Soybomb]

And everytime it happens Midway gets to say,

I don't suppose anyone actually has this flyer and could tell us if any other ammo/bullets are still offered on the website for the price advertised?

 

[cmidkiff]

MidwayUSA has collected over $3,830,081.90 and sent it to the NRA

(Mission Statement)...to support the 2nd Amendment, the NRA and the Shooting Sports Industry.

still a family-owned business

Sorry you had a problem dealing with Midway, but I'll keep purchasing from them. The company does good things for the shooting community, and deserve our support in return.

(NOTE: I'm not saying that Graff&Sons is a bad place to buy from... quite the contrary. Graf&Sons also participate in the NRA Roundup program.)

I for one would much rather look at a catalog with pricing, even if a few prices are out of date, than one with [call for quote] printed next to every item.

 

[munk]

Is it reasonable to expect the prices in a ad to match the actual prices the company will charge? It's fine to say the company is legal because they published a disclaimer, then the question becomes how many lies are they allowed before my business is given to another company? What happens if nothing in the catalogue is accurate? That's absurd, you say? Then how many inaccuracies are acceptable to you? 5%? 20%?



We liked Midway. They had the NRA roundup. They were on 'our' side. Printing prices they know beforehand they can't honor is not the behavior I expect from them. They want to do it, fine. My 300 dollars a year loss in business with them is hardly going to impact their profit margin.

munk

 

[MakAttak]

In Dec 2005, lead cost about $0.65 per pound.

In November 2007, lead costs about $1.34 a pound.

In the OP's original order of 500 250gr bullets, he is requesting 125,000 grains of lead. 17.85 pounds. 18 pounds of lead in 2005 cost $11.70. 18 pounds of lead today costs $24.12.

Lead cost $0.83 per pound in August of this year. 18 pounds at that price is $14.94.

There's about a $9 cost differential between supply costs.

The midway rep said the price was raised from $47 to $73, a difference of $26.

That's too much of a markup... hence a declaration of price gouging is well justified IMO.

MasterCast can afford to sell me bullets for quite a bit less. So it isn't materials cost.

It's gouging.

Soooo azredhawk44, how come the price of those bullets in 2005 wasn't $11.70? And why isn't it $24.12 today?

They will tell you it is supply costs, but keep in mind that as demand for the metals has increased, more than likely so have the cost of other implements necessary for the processing of such metals. Do you really want them to give you an itemized list of what caused the price increase? Or perhaps you could go into business and compete against them because you can charge a much lower price, thus putting them out of business.

I'm sorry, in this market where there's no barriers to entry and a fairly simple manufacturing process (relative to others), it's highly doubtful they are "gouging".... Please, being that the anti's have a lot of faulty logic for guns, you should think RKBA supporters would be wary of just jumping for the easy answer for economic questions too...

 

[Justin]

This one's run its course.