[Closed] On One false advertising

Welcome to the modern advertising model used by lots of companies 😉

EDIT: Beat me to it

Its not though is it. CRC, Merlin, Evans and all the other online retailers hardly do it at all.

Its not though is it. CRC, Merlin, Evans and all the other online retailers hardly do it at all.

CRC is the single worst compnay in the short history of the internet at doing this! Just try and buy any item of clothing off them at the headline price if you're not XXXXXXXL or XXS-junior. Merlin's not far behind, and Evans just never have anything in stock.

Agreed, just looking to buy my first dropper and went on there to find theyre out of stock or not at the suggested sale price!

Not on imo. But they shall not be the first or the last to do this.
We've as a cycling community become accustomed to them giving amazing jaw dropping deals over the years so it may just be frustration that not all the time it can be cheap cheap!

Just my pennies worth

Mehhh, I'm struggling to get worked up by it.

Have you seen the PSA about the £108 reverbs from canyon?

It's not limited to bikes either, most products are like that on google, at least it no longer links to finished ebay auctions.

It's not really the shops fault, it'd be an extra job to remove the page each time it's out of stock rather than just leave it be and the automatic stock control update the numbers, and it's not really 'advertising' either it's just google trawling the internet and throwing up false positives in it's search results.

Failing to understand how google make so much money if theyre shopping results throw up false positives...

It's dishonest as far as I am concerned and puts me off retailers who do this. People quick to dismiss it as just business, welcome to the internet etc but it doesn't need to be like that.

Failing to understand how google make so much money if theyre shopping results throw up false positives...

They get paid 20p every time someone uses their Company name as a Verb.

thisisnotaspoon - Member
CRC is the single worst compnay in the short history of the internet at doing this! Just try and buy any item of clothing off them at the headline price if you're not XXXXXXXL or XXS-junior. Merlin's not far behind, and Evans just never have anything in stock.

Exactly. CRC I find really frustrating for this and the Google search results for them are likewise bad.

As for dishonesty, being a hook to get your interest, etc. Well that's retail. It's been going on for 1000s of years.

Oops!

[quote=nealglover ]They get paid 20p every time someone uses their Company name as a Verb.

Did you google that? (I'm on commission)

Looking at OO site recently it looked very poorly stocked..

did you google that?

No I "asked Jeeves" (is that still a thing?)

Hang on... I'll google it 🙂

We are somewhat to blame. Each time you search for the cheapest price you help retailers race to the bottom.

Now we shop at the click of a button its not surprising retailers need ways to tempt you to their virtual shop.

Regardless of if the product you originally wanted is in stock - they have you on their website, and you might spot something else you'd like to buy.

No different to a shop having "SALE NOW ON! UP TO 99% OFF!" sign outside, yet the only things in the discount sale are XXXXXL or XXXXS.

They aren't lying.

thisisnotaspoon - Member

CRC is the single worst compnay in the short history of the internet at doing this! Just try and buy any item of clothing off them at the headline price if you're not XXXXXXXL or XXS-junior

To be fair, that's a natural side effect of clearing out undesirable stock. Us poor oppressed mediums rarely get the good deals. But it's not outright misleading.

Stuff gets onto the google shopping pages because companies submit a file with their stock in it. It's not some random trawl through the internet.

Google Shopping rules are that they'll only show items that are in stock, hence shops coming up with clever ruses to imply that they have it in stock.

None of this is accidental. These are decisions made by the management of these shops.

[quote=Trimix ]We are somewhat to blame. Each time you search for the cheapest price you help retailers race to the bottom.

Only if you then ignore the fact that what you actually want is more expensive than you've been led to believe by googling. Surely if you simply google as the first filter then you're not encouraging this behaviour at all, as it provides no benefit to the shop to do so. Or is it just me who manages to resist browsing a site which I've been taken to under false pretenses after I've googled?

I'm more annoyed by the "spend another £3.75 and get free postage" dispite this not being true. Free postage was at £100 not £50.

I totally get the world of marketing don't worry about that. I think a few here are missing the point.

Whats annoying about OO is not that they are only advertising 65T 150mm arm XO cranksets for 50p and the 36t 175's are 299 but that they don't even have the cheap ones in stock....or the expensive ones for that matter.

I could do that - here look I've got some pikes (80mm) for £25 come and look at my shop. Scotroutes comes along and says actually 80mm Pikes are just what I want for my niche bikepacking enduro build - but oh I seem to be out of them. OK says scotroutes I'll forget the bikepacking and just go for the standard endure build pikes for £599 - oh I've got none of those either.....but I do have this great hoody with Planet X in neon tubing on the back.

False advertising see.

Most of you are giving them too much credit.

I put it down to incompetence and short staffing rather than devious intentions.

[quote=winston ] Whats annoying about OO is not that they are only advertising 65T 150mm arm XO cranksets for 50p and the 36t 175's are 299 but that they don't even have the cheap ones in stock

Bugger. Was after a 150mm 65T crankset.

winston - how much for your Planet X hoody by PayPal Gift?