When the price is not the price

Today I had a Strange Encounter with a novel pricing policy; the Internet Only price. It came about because I needed to upgrade the memory in my laptop, and PC World advertised 2G PC5300 sticks for £33.99 each, which seemed pretty reasonable, given a quick comparative internet search. In any case, I needed them right now, so a bricks and mortar store was really my only option.

So I trucked on down to Sunny Slough, a 10 minute drive, and went to the shelf - and lo, the price was £52.99 per stick. Hmmm. I enquired further and after the - admittedly most helpful - assistant and I had browsed the net together, it transpired that in 8pt tiny writing just above the price were the words 'web exclusive'. Next to that is a button that lets you 'collect at store'. I was told that the way it works is that you place an order through the internet and then the staff go pick the stock off the shelf. Then you drive down and pick it up. That'd be the same shelf we were just standing in front of, then.

So, for reasons that - well, I can think of a reason - but let's just park that thought for a moment - anyway, reasons that might not seem entirely obvious, it'll cost you a cool £38 extra to rock on down and pick them off the shelf yourself.

Of course, I simply did the Polite Incredulity thing and of course, picked them up for the original internet price. But it got me thinking. PC World's prices have often seemed 'you're having a laugh', (particularly for stuff like inkjet cartridges), but this seems like a fairly cunning way of being able to stick it to walk-in customers who haven't done their online research, while still looking competitive in the open world of the net, where price comparisons are only a click away.

I could, presumably, have whipped out my Android phone, browsed to their site, ordered the stock and then stood there while the assistant went to the shelf. Kinda surreal, but it really does remind you - in the UK, in particular - buyer beware!.

To be perfectly fair to PC World, I've had a similar experience with Comet, purchasing a dishwasher, where the online price was a good deal cheaper than the sticker price in the store, and yet I would have been picking it up from exactly the same store, anyway. So, folks, be careful out there and check those web prices. So far, I've found staff perfectly willing to match them, presumably because they know you'd walk if they didn't. But it seems very unfair on shoppers who expect transparency and fairness in pricing. It'd be different if the stock was being fulfilled, like Amazon, say, from a central warehouse. Then you might expect online pricing to reflect the economy of scale. Otherwise, this seems like a fairly blatant piece of customer exploitation; perfectly legal, of course, but hardly ethical.