Someone in the merchandising team at 6pm.com has a red face this morning – on Friday, the internet retailer mistakenly priced almost all its products at $49.99.
Given that some products on the site normally sell for well over $1,000, it was a pretty expensive mistake.
“When we figured out the mistake was happening, we had to shut down the site for a bit until we got the pricing problem fixed,” says Aaron Magness, director of brand marketing and business development for parent company Zappos Development.
“While we’re sure this was a great deal for customers, it was inadvertent, and we took a big loss (over $1.6 million – ouch) selling so many items so far under cost.”
The error only applied to products which were for sale on 6pm.com but not on sister site Zappos.com – although, Magness says, this applies to the vast majority of products on 6pm.com.
“However, it was our mistake. We will be honoring all purchases that took place on 6pm.com during our mess up,” he says. “We apologize to anyone that was confused and/or frustrated during out little hiccup, and thank you all for being such great customers.”
The window of opportunity lasted from midnight to 6am PST, bringing new meaning to the company’s motto of ‘Shop. Save. Smile.’
Magness adds: “Let’s just say this was not a boring weekend for us.”
