In November 2013, retailing giant Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. stated that "technical errors caused internally" resulted in the publication of deeply discounted sales prices for approximately six hours on its online sales site on November 6, 2013. Incorrectly priced items included $11 kayaks, $9 computer monitors, and $21 treadmills, as well as $100 cans of Lysol and $70 packets of Kool-Aid. The "Terms of Use" section of Wal-Mart's website provides that the price of an item cannot be confirmed until after the customer's order is placed. The section includes the following language as well:
Walmart reserves the right to cancel any orders containing pricing errors, with no further obligations to you, even after your receipt of an order confirmation or shipping notice from Walmart. Ravi Jariwala, a Wal-Mart spokesperson, indicated that because of the "wide discrepancy" in the pricing, Wal-Mart would notify the customers who ordered the erroneously priced items that their orders were canceled, refund the purchase price, and issue a $10 gift certificate. Do you think Wal-Mart took the best approach to handling the error, or were there other steps it should have taken? Is this merely a "public relations" problem, or are any legal issues involved? Certain customers, who were probably thinking, "It's too good to be true," used Wal-Mart "Site to Store" option and were able to pick up their online orders at a store before the company canceled the orders. Should these customers be treated any differently from the ones who had not yet received their ordered goods? Did these customers act ethically?