Buyer Beware!Price was raised on an item while it was in my cart.
This is not to start a debate about how good or bad Faith Life may or may not not be.
I had a book that I know was 3.99 in my cart, I continued to shop, and when I came back I was notified that the prices of one or more books in my cart was changed.
The price of the book was changed from 3.99 to 6.99.
This is the kind of thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth when dealing with Faith Life.
I feel that once I place an item in my cart to buy that was clearly marked for 3.99 that should be what I may purchase it for.
I feel like this kind of thing is false advertising, not that Logos has ever done such a thing before.
I do have to inform you that this was done after Amazon raised the price of the book from 3.99 to 4.49.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010R1AYL6/ref=docs-os-doi_0 -
Comments
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How much time passed between when you added it to your cart and when you were notified of a price change?
Is your expectation that once you add an item to your cart you're locking in the ability to buy it at that price indefinitely? I can see how that would be a cool feature,
but . . .- No ecommerce shopping cart in my experience works that way. When the price changes, it changes everywhere. The only way to lock in the price is to buy it before the price changes.
- Publishers control their promotional pricing, and we can't continue to sell it at that price after the cutoff or we end up taking a loss.
- These changes are controlled by an automated ONIX feed updating process.
- What if the price decreases? I assume you'd want the price to change in your cart in that case, right?
Isn't this precisely the opposite of false advertising? If we charged you $6.99 without notifying you of the price change, that would be false advertising. But we advertised to you in advance of buying it what the price was to make sure we were advertising to you the correct price.
It sounds like you just happened to catch a title right as it was transitioning from its promotional price to its non-promotional price. I'm sorry about that.
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Phil
In my opinion, the price should only be raised on the item if I leave the website and then get back on.
I feel like while I am continuing the same shopping period and have not left the store (website), walking the digital aisles and still shopping, that the price should remain as it is displayed when I placed it in my cart.
I know that there are details to running an electronic store and how computer code works that are beyond my pool of knowledge.
But I am a Pastor, not a computer programmer, so no need to talk down to me about my lack of knowledge of computer programming, which is rude in my opinion.
But this doesn't surprise me. This has become the usual Faith Life way in my opinion.
Talk down to people and blame the customer when your poorly designed program doesn't work like it is supposed to:
workflows - people can't be sure what information they will lose when they try to use them
new notes - the roll out was a nightmare; still don't know if I will lose the notes that I take right now
Systematic theology tool - barely use-able at the roll out.
I have been with your company for years. I Loved it and your customer service very much at the beginning.
Over time I have had to fight off the feeling that your software has become both over hyped and over priced.
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I'm sorry you felt like I was talking down to you. That wasn't my intent. I was challenging the charge of false advertising and providing an explanation for why things are the way they are. I don't think we're doing anything unusual here. In my experience, this is pretty standard ecommerce behavior. But I'm happy to be corrected.
I'm also not blaming you. It seems like you just got caught in the transition of the promotional price to the non-promotional price, and I'm sorry you had that experience. I've been there before, too, and I know it's no fun to miss a deal.
I'm sorry Worfklows, Notes, and the Theology Guide weren't a more polished experience when we shipped Logos 8. We continue to work on improving them based on user feedback, which we really appreciate. I'm not aware of any data loss issue with Notes. Can you provide more information on that?
Let me know if I can do anything for you (phil@faithlife.com).
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I am with Faithlife on this one (and how weird that feels), what more could they do, they even gave a warning.
The site is working exactly how it should, there is no need to have a go at Faithlife.
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At this point, I don't care to have debates with Phil or anyone else.
I had an opinion and I expressed it.
I know that some people will defend Faith Life right now.
For now, you are happy with company.
The next time something goes wrong, these same people will be on these forums whining and crying like usual, however I must state that I am usually in agreement with these folks about the issue, whatever it may be.
It was just a couple of bucks. The money isn't the issue. I was just stating my thoughts.
Regarding feedback, I haven't been hired by Faith Life to be in management.
However, I believe that it's been evident to me and perhaps to some others that your company can use some healthy changes in this department.
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
Is your expectation that once you add an item to your cart you're locking in the ability to buy it at that price indefinitely? I can see how that would be a cool feature,
but . . .- No ecommerce shopping cart in my experience works that way. When the price changes, it changes everywhere. The only way to lock in the price is to buy it before the price changes.
- Publishers control their promotional pricing, and we can't continue to sell it at that price after the cutoff or we end up taking a loss.
- These changes are controlled by an automated ONIX feed updating process.
- What if the price decreases? I assume you'd want the price to change in your cart in that case, right?
I never knew this. And I am sure Jesse did not either. I would have been just as miffed and would have cancelled the order thinking it was not fair. Of course it is fair. But if you don't know how the system works, you would wonder what is going on. Keeping customers happy is not easy. But communication is important.
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Mark said:
Keeping customers happy is not easy. But communication is important.
Yes to both, and I think Phil did a decent job here of the latter. It's really hard to communicate well by text alone people who aren't happy, especially when you don't know them in person.
On Amazon, I've often had items change price in my cart--in both directions--but not so much for FL. Mind you, Amazon changes prices at lot more frequently and most items I add to my cart on a FL website I either buy right away or remove right away. One big hidden difference between online carts and in-person ones is that we can easily keep items in online shopping carts for days (or potentially years)--that doesn't really happen in person. Happily, with FL books, they don't go out of stock--I've had Amazon go out of stock while I was actively trying to buy something, and that can be really quite frustrating.
Here's what I wonder. On Amazon, when the price of something in my cart changes, there's a warning/notification in my cart that the price has changed. Since the OP didn't mention it, I don't imagine it happened in the OP's case.
Phil, if it doesn't exist, is there any chance it might be possible to add a notification to folks' carts in the event that prices change to items that have been added to them? Or does that notification already exist?
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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SineNomine said:
Here's what I wonder. On Amazon, when the price of something in my cart changes, there's a warning/notification in my cart that the price has changed. Since the OP didn't mention it, I don't imagine it happened in the OP's case.
Actually he did state that he was notified of the price change - I've put the relevant phrase in bold
"I had a book that I know was 3.99 in my cart, I continued to shop, and when I came back I was notified that the prices of one or more books in my cart was changed."
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It looks like the book is 9.99 now.
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Jesse Blevins said:
I had a book that I know was 3.99 in my cart, I continued to shop, and when I came back I was notified that the prices of one or more books in my cart was changed.
...
I feel that once I place an item in my cart to buy that was clearly marked for 3.99 that should be what I may purchase it for.
FYI, not do defend Faithlife, but just for comparison, Amazon does this all the time. And it goes both ways. Sometimes you find a price has gone down since you've started shopping and that's a pleasant surprise. You wouldn't want to be locked into the higher price in those cases. I suppose it's somewhat arbitrary whether they should lock in the original price (which would be a loss for you in some cases and benefit you in others) or give you whatever the current changed price is (which would also sometimes be good or sometimes bad). Probably balances out in the long run either way.
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