WM
Wynand M

1 reviews | Active since Oct 2011

27 Nov 2017, 09:25

Misleading pricing, marking up to lure buyers

So last week I was looking at buying a new mechanical keyboard. The ones I were looking at were two options from Redragon, namely the Yama and the Devarajas. Now since I spend a lot of time researching my options before buying, I checked prices everywhere - including TAKEALOT. I even considered getting the YAMA from TAKEALOT because their price was good. In fact, it was selling at around R1,250, the same as the recommended price for this keyboard from all other retailers (as can be seen here: https://www.rebeltech.co.za/12737-redragon-yama.html). The Devarajas was a little bit cheaper, around R1,150 (again, to be seen here: https://www.rebeltech.co.za/13391-redragon-devarajas.html).

Now, today I log in to check if TAKEALOT has these keyboards on their legendary "Blue Dot Sale" for Cyber Monday. To my shock, I see that they did the following:

They are LYING about the list price for BOTH keyboards. The Devarajas was marked UP to R1,799. The Yama was marked UP to R2,099. Discounts app**** to both were then HIGHLY inflated. They claim a 45% saving on the Devarajas, and a 33% saving on the Yama, but let's do the maths:

Let's take the Devarajas' original price as R1,200. That means the real "special" percentage is a mere 18% saving. That's VERY much less than their claimed 45%!

On the Yama, it's even worse. They claim a 33% saving, but the original price was around R1,250. That means their new price of R1,399 is not only a blatant lie on the saving, but it's also a convenient 10% INCREASE in price. That's not a saving by any stretch of the imagination, and advertising it as such is a seriously low, disgusting lie!

TAKEALOT, you are sick, low and disgusting in treating your customers like this. I have been a loyal customer since the beginning of 2011, with around 150 orders totaling many thousands of Rands, but I am seriously considering boycotting you and reporting you to the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa. How will you rectify this? I have plenty of proof for this, and it's not just a once-off occurrence. I've seen this happen a few times now, this time it's just something I was looking for so I decided to act on it. How many people have you ****med into your "specials" before?

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