We have seen this happen before – a company places the wrong price tag on their product, only to have eagle-eyed customers make an order thinking that this is the deal of the century. In many instances, the seller is either obligated by law to sell at the erroneous price, or simply do so on its own to “pay for its mistake” and retain the confidence of its customers, despite making a loss on the balance sheet.
In this case, Sony Malaysia has apologized for posting a PS3 console price at $25 (RM79, which was actually the price for games, not for the console), but didn’t ship the consoles at this record low price, thus avoiding a $352,000 loss (RM1.1M) on the difference with the actual price of the console.
How should this type of situations be handled in your opinion? On one hand, one could argue that the company should honor the pricing of its ads and pay attention before printing, thus discouraging bait and switch tactics. On the other hand, if it was an honest mistake, is it really moral to knowingly order a $25 console while knowing that it is worth much more?