SmartPak's bad math: "25% off" isn't! Minor update, p. 5

[Ambitious_Kate]

[QUOTE=ako;8015111]
Bingo!!! It does make a difference to SP. That 1% adds up… I don’t believe for a second that they don’t “get” the math here.

Years ago I applied for a job in marketing and they gave me a basic math test… And it was all about applying multiple discounts!! You bet the marketing team knows basic math. They also know most folks don’t do the math.[/QUOTE]

Yeah. Think of it this way. Only $1 on that $100 item? Phffft. But all they need to do is "mis"calculate 100 orders and they’ve made a hundred dollars. Beleive me, theirs no mystery about it. That adds up to thousands a day, and someone has to account for that.

[fourfAlter]

@zippyrider;8019063

I think a big issue for SmartPak is how so many people felt blown off and that their complaint wasn’t validated or taken seriously. That’s a big no-no.

I have yet to hear back and I specifically asked two reps to get back to me about this, I called on Monday and now it’s Friday. Looks like I won’t be hearing back.
I love Smartpak, but that love is fading REALLY fast.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=SuckerForHorses;8019038]
They will probably only make the corrections to the people who noticed it and complained :lol:[/QUOTE]

Well that won’t be good enough for me.

They sent me an e-mail thanking me for finding their mistake and saying they
'd correct it. They believed it was limited to this sale (and I don’t). They said they’d issue refunds to those mistakenly overcharged.

IMO, they should look back to see if this software problem has been in play for all of these sales. Then they should repay all the folks who were over-charged during all the time Smartpak exploited its mistake.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=Jealoushe;8017716]
in the future - SmartPak has a surcharge for anyone with a user name on CoTH - LOL[/QUOTE]

yuh-huh, and that would be illegal as well.

They need to fix this and fix it right.

I will tell you guys that the SP people have been polite to a fault. And to an extent, that has bugged me. I feel like I’m being glad-handed. (Because “nice horsey girls don’t do math”?)

SP does get some credit. I called up a CS Rep already mad/serious and wanted to speak with a supervisor. I got handed to one. I explained the problem and said I wanted them to find it, see how long this had been going on/how much money had been made and get back to me with an accounting and a solution by Friday. I asked for this to be sent via e-mail. They (yet another manager) did do that much.

And in that e-mail they said they’d refund those amounts owed to the USEF and AQHA members who got screwed. I can find you the language if necessary, but I don’t think you guys should have to be doing the work to get reimbursed.

I didn’t dig the second half of the letter being devoted to advertising the free shipping policies and such. That was inappropriate, given the topic.

That manager, too, called to follow up and said she’d be out of the office Friday.

So I’ll call back to day and see if I can speak with her supervisor about refunds for people who have bought during other sales where the same math was used.

I’ll let you know what happens.

By the way, is the AG of Massachusetts the right place to take this complaint if it comes to that? Or does it go somewhere federal since this is interstate commerce? I don’t live in MA.

[fourfAlter]

[QUOTE=mvp;8019169]
yuh-huh, and that would be illegal as well.

They need to fix this and fix it right.

I will tell you guys that the SP people have been polite to a fault. And to an extent, that has bugged me. I feel like I’m being glad-handed. (Because “nice horsey girls don’t do math”?)

SP does get some credit. I called up a CS Rep already mad/serious and wanted to speak with a supervisor. I got handed to one. I explained the problem and said I wanted them to find it, see how long this had been going on/how much money had been made and get back to me with an accounting and a solution by Friday. I asked for this to be sent via e-mail. They (yet another manager) did do that much.

And in that e-mail they said they’d refund those amounts owed to the USEF and AQHA members who got screwed. I can find you the language if necessary, but I don’t think you guys should have to be doing the work to get reimbursed.

I didn’t dig the second half of the letter being devoted to advertising the free shipping policies and such. That was inappropriate, given the topic.

That manager, too, called to follow up and said she’d be out of the office Friday.

So I’ll call back to day and see if I can speak with her supervisor about refunds for people who have bought during other sales where the same math was used.

I’ll let you know what happens.

By the way, is the AG of Massachusetts the right place to take this complaint if it comes to that? Or does it go somewhere federal since this is interstate commerce? I don’t live in MA.[/QUOTE]

Ya, I’m 99% sure there was also faulty math on the 20% off “everything” sale on Black Friday… Glad you heard back and everyone was nice- I haven’t heard back and neither rep was helpful (a new experience!) one was flat out rude and one was oblivious to anything I was saying.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=fourfAlter;8019196]
Ya, I’m 99% sure there was also faulty math on the 20% off “everything” sale on Black Friday… Glad you heard back and everyone was nice- I haven’t heard back and neither rep was helpful (a new experience!) one was flat out rude and one was oblivious to anything I was saying.[/QUOTE]

I think it’s reasonable to give SP a minute to do through their records and calculate refunds for everyone. But I will ask them about the timeframe for this.

[fourfAlter]

[QUOTE=mvp;8019211]
I think it’s reasonable to give SP a minute to do through their records and calculate refunds for everyone. But I will ask them about the timeframe for this.[/QUOTE]

Well I called Monday so I think they’ve had plenty of time to send me back an email, as it seems a few others on here have gotten a response! (I only asked about this sale, not any previous ones)

[Ambitious_Kate]

Yes, the Attorney General would be interested in fraud in his state. Which is what false advertising is. And in the obtuse responses from customer service people. Very poor customer service on SP’s part.

Also, there is no way SP does not know what they are doing. If they didn’t, and calculated their gross sales for USEF members (etc) , deducted 25% and looked at that number and looked at their sales number and saw that they had actually collected a whole lot more than they should have, someone should have ground to a halt right there and done something about it right away, the first time this was EVER miscalculated, such as say, years ago, and corrected customer service or who ever wrote up their calculations software to only take 5% off the already reduced price instead of the original price. And when that software was written, somebody had to ask “Do I write this to take 25% off the original price of the order, or do I first take 20% off, then another 5% off the reduced price?” And somebody looked at it and told them to do it the latter way. You have to decide how your calculations are made. Its not random.

Somebody has seen those two numbers and been okay with the difference.

As I said, 100 orders of $100.00ea. means a dollar extra made each order in SP’s pocket, and that would be in this example, $100.00. Imagine the actual number of orders actually placed during a 20% sale by the quarter horse people and USEF people. A nice bonus for someone.

[Haybert]

A agree with the above. They know fully what is going on.
All retail stores pull this. The consumer is mentally calculating the entire discount, only to find you only get additional discount on the discounted price.

$10 per every thousand dollars in sales. That adds up pretty fast.

:mad:

[Bogie]

The other thing that I have noticed about SmartPak is that when you shop in the clearance section of the store, the discounts are taken against a higher price than the SAME item in the non-clearance section. So, if you pick up an item marked 50% off of a $200 price you can show them the SAME item in the store for sale at $185, they will actually give you 50% of the $185 price . . . but you have to be paying attention.

[zippyrider]

So, this is a little off topic. Are you able to exchange or return monogrammed items from SP? I called to see if I could exchange a monogrammed SmartPak cooler for the next size up awhile back. The customer service rep said she had to look into it to see if they could authorize a return or exchange for a monogrammed item. Totally unused, but monogrammed. Ultimately, she said I could exchange it.

The whole time she was looking into whether I could send it back, I kept thinking that they were supposed to have a 100% happiness guarantee. I could find no information anywhere on their website that monogrammed items were final sale only.

But then why was there all the gnashing of teeth to see if it could be returned or exchanged? Anyone else have experience with this? If you do return or exchange a monogrammed item, does the monogramming get deducted from your refund amount, or do you have to pay for monogramming again in the case of an exchange?

I wish this information is better presented on their website. I think SmartPak may spend too much time making their information look cutesy and sound witty, rather than focusing on details and specifics.

[IFG]

Zippyrider. Ther clearance section at SP is full of monogrammed items that have been returned.

[red_mares]

So the moral here is that SmartPak is no more a paragon of retail ethics than the oft maligned Dover?

Man, that’s going rock some people’s worlds.

[trubandloki]

[QUOTE=zippyrider;8019667]
So, this is a little off topic. Are you able to exchange or return monogrammed items from SP? I called to see if I could exchange a monogrammed SmartPak cooler for the next size up awhile back. The customer service rep said she had to look into it to see if they could authorize a return or exchange for a monogrammed item. Totally unused, but monogrammed. Ultimately, she said I could exchange it.

The whole time she was looking into whether I could send it back, I kept thinking that they were supposed to have a 100% happiness guarantee. I could find no information anywhere on their website that monogrammed items were final sale only.

But then why was there all the gnashing of teeth to see if it could be returned or exchanged? Anyone else have experience with this? If you do return or exchange a monogrammed item, does the monogramming get deducted from your refund amount, or do you have to pay for monogramming again in the case of an exchange?

I wish this information is better presented on their website. I think SmartPak may spend too much time making their information look cutesy and sound witty, rather than focusing on details and specifics.[/QUOTE]
I personally could not return something I had personalized just because I ordered the wrong size.
Normal unused return can get restocked and sold for the regular price, this item is now relatively useless to them.

[IPEsq]

I’ve noticed the funny math before, too. Not limited to this sale. But I never bothered trying to complain about it.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=Bogie;8019638]
The other thing that I have noticed about SmartPak is that when you shop in the clearance section of the store, the discounts are taken against a higher price than the SAME item in the non-clearance section. So, if you pick up an item marked 50% off of a $200 price you can show them the SAME item in the store for sale at $185, they will actually give you 50% of the $185 price . . . but you have to be paying attention.[/QUOTE]

Really? That isn’t right…. along the same lines that this FUBAR math situation isn’t right.

I have some boots I bought on sale. I’m not sure I can reconstruct the prices at the time, but I’d be curious to see if that happened to me.

And I don’t agree with the idea that only those smart enough to point out the mistake gain the lower price.

[toady123]

Is there an advertising standards council in your state? Here they police these things and will follow up on consumer complaints. It’s blatant false advertising.

[GutsNGlory]

Had a good experience with another company today that reminded me of this thread. I entered one of the monthly giveaway competitions with Riding Warehouse last night, and received a $10 off coupon just for entering. I also get a group discount with them, so decided to go ahead and use the coupon + my discount to place an order on something I wanted (but didn’t necessarily need). I added in a few minor items I needed to take advantage of the free shipping, too. (Also good to note that the item prices were less on their site than any other retailer online, already.) Not thinking about how it would impact totals, I applied the $10 off coupon and then my discount code. I paid through PayPal and today received an email notice that I’d been refunded $x amount. At first, I thought maybe they were out of stock on one of the minor items I bought, and therefore refunding the amount for now. But then I got the shipment notice a few houses later and realized they had taken it upon themselves to correct MY error in how I applied the discount codes - they were refunding the difference due to me applying my group discount to the lower price after I’d applied the $10 off coupon! How stellar is that? Anyway, just proof that there are still other retailers out there with good business practices and fabulous customer service. I didn’t know about Riding Warehouse until about a year ago, but they’ve quickly become my go-to place when I need something.

[comingback]

This is not new for them, and I actually had a rep correctly explain the math. It happened when I ordered a pair of boots two years ago, so more than just a buck or two, but not earth shattering.

I’ve seen this before with other retailers, but it’s in the fine print. For example, if I shop at Kohl’s and have both Kohl’s cash and a % off coupon, they reduce my purchase first by the Kohl’s cash amount and then apply the% off. But at least that’s written on the coupon.

I felt a little duped with SP because I usually see the “25% off” and assume it’s of the retail price. I don’t really recall seeing fine print in the ad.

Bottom line, I don’t mind the math or method, but am bothered by the apparent lack of explanation in advertisement.

[IFG]

[QUOTE=comingback;8020719]
This is not new for them, and I actually had a rep correctly explain the math. It happened when I ordered a pair of boots two years ago, so more than just a buck or two, but not earth shattering.

I’ve seen this before with other retailers, but it’s in the fine print. For example, if I shop at Kohl’s and have both Kohl’s cash and a % off coupon, they reduce my purchase first by the Kohl’s cash amount and then apply the% off. But at least that’s written on the coupon.

I felt a little duped with SP because I usually see the “25% off” and assume it’s of the retail price. I don’t really recall seeing fine print in the ad.

Bottom line, I don’t mind the math or method, but am bothered by the apparent lack of explanation in advertisement.[/QUOTE]

Bottom line, they are welcome to stack the discounts however they like, but then they cannot advertise 25% off, because per any attorney general’s office, that is false advertising and illegal.