Believe it or not, retailers have the right to back out if they screw
up, usually in their terms and conditions which you generally agree to without reading them. Depends on the size of the retailer, the cost to them, the potential damage to their reputation how many of these cock-ups they just suck up.
My contract law is a bit rusty, but i’m pretty sure advertising goods for sale is basically an ‘invitation to offer’ – which means they are inviting you to offer money for their goods.
The next step is you ‘make an offer’ which in the case of on-line sales is basically you fill in the boxes and add your payment details.
If the retailer chooses to ‘accept your offer’ he processes the payment, and this forms the basis of a ‘contract to supply’
So no, they don’t have to sell it to you for the wrong price….
*this might be wrong though, as it has been a few years…
You’re about right.