Black Friday ploy by John Lewis misled customers
JOHN Lewis has been caught out running a misleading ‘price match’ offer on an Apple Watch on Black Friday.
the department store chain promises to match the low prices charged by rivals under its pledge of being ‘Never Knowingly undersold since 1925’.
But watchdogs found that rather than match a competitor’s low price on an Apple Watch, the retailer listed it as ‘out of stock’ on its website.
the discovery by the Advertising standards Authority raises suspicions that the ploy may have been used more widely by John Lewis.
this has been denied by the retailer, which insists it was a oneoff on its busiest day of the year.
An investigation was launched after a complaint about a promotion last year around Black Friday – the November discount sales day – by the department store and its website.
the website offered a series 1 Apple Watch with aluminium case and black sports band at £249 in a ‘price match’ with a rival retailer – a saving of £20 on the normal price.
It coincided with a prominent announcement on its website home page, which stated: ‘Black Friday Event… We’ve lowered hundreds of our prices this weekend.
‘Check our offers online and in store – Never Knowingly undersold since 1925.’
text further down the home page stated: ‘Price Match – today we’re matching a competitor’s promotion’. there was also a ‘shop now’ button linked to the product pages.
A shopper found the watch was listed as ‘ out of stock’ when she attempted to buy it Unavailable: An Apple Watch for £249. But it was available the next day at full price.
the woman took the case to the AsA. In a ruling published today, it has agreed the promotion was ‘not conducted fairly’. It pointed to an industry code which says retailers ‘must conduct their promotions equitably, promptly and efficiently and be seen to deal fairly and honourably with participants and potential participants’.
the AsA said John Lewis clearly had stocks of the Apple Watch available, even though it decided to list them as unavailable on the website. It said: ‘We considered John Lewis had not
‘It wasn’t conducted fairly’
conducted the promotion fairly, resulting in unnecessary disappointment.
‘We therefore concluded that the promotion had breached the code.’
John Lewis said it continued to sell the Apple Watch at the lower price on the day in its stores, despite removing it from the website.
It had decided to take the watch off sale because it was not sure it would have enough stock to meet demand.
It had returned the watch to full price the next day because the competitor’s promotion had ended.
John Lewis accepted that the online availability was perhaps removed earlier than it could have been, but insisted the decision was made in good faith in the context of a rise in sales on Black Friday.
A spokesman said: ‘We’re disappointed by the AsA’s decision. We believe this is due to a misunderstanding of the difference between a one- day unplanned price match applied because of our Never Knowingly undersold policy and planned John Lewis four-day Black Friday promotions.’