Well worth a read. See link below.
My take is that the refund should have been for the full amount, as the discount only applied to the first $150
Have always been refunded the full amount not a discount amount, even when the $ become less than a qualifying spend.
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/woolworths-he…
That is also incorrect. He should have gotten back the full $7.
Reason TL;DR : If he had not purchased $7 worth of muffins, he would still be entitled to $10 discount.
Reason (Long Version): As you said
It is $10 off your entire order, provided you meet the conditions.
So, even if woolies refunded him for the muffins, he would have still "met the conditions" as his purchase would still be above $150, hence qualifying him for "$10 off your entire order".
That logic isn't used because if the order was exactly $150 and he received a $10 discount, and then returned a $10 item, it would result in no refund.
It's not uncommon for companies to use a percentage off discount per item, even for $ off totals.
Target also does this for their spend and get offers.
E.g. I spent $117 on clothing and received $20 off, on the receipt 17.09% is discounted from each eligible item.
That logic isn't used because if the order was exactly $150 and he received a $10 discount, and then returned a $10 item, it would result in no refund.
I actually agree with your above statement, but this is not the situation we are dealing with.
Let's look at 2 scenarios:
Scenario 1: The order was exactly $150 and he received a $10 discount, and then HE returned a $10 item.
Outcome: He is NOT entitled to a refund as the refund would result in him failing to meet the conditions of the offer.
Scenario 2: The order was exactly $150 and he received a $10 discount, and Woolies is UNABLE to fulfil part of purchase.
Outcome: He is entitled to a FULL refund as his purchases meets the conditions of the offer as he did purchase $150 of stuff. The fact that woolies is unable to fulfil part of his order is irrelevant.
No refund would effectively result in no discount whatsoever, even though without the muffin purchase they would have still qualified for the full $10 discount on the rest of the order. I think they should have received the full $7 back.
If Woolworths wanted to get into this petty back and forth shite with me over 70c I would have returned EVERYTHING in principle. The customer service reps from Woolworths either have little intelligence, or have been afforded no power to exercise reasonable discretion to maintain a healthy relationship with their customer. They really have no clue basically and it's this sort of stuff that would make customers leave and never return. This is a prime example of what NOT to do.
TL;DR
Scenario 1:
Purchased amount: $140 ($150 - $10 return)
Hence, does not qualify for discount.
Scenario 2:
Purchased amount: $150
Hence, qualifies for discount. (Reason: His purchase is still $150, with Woolies OWEING him $10)
@bsmksg: I read it, and the customer actually ordered $350 worth of stuff. Considering this, in my opinion there is no scenario where they shouldn't have received a full refund for their muffins. Buying exactly $150 worth of stuff and returning an item is another issue entirely. He was so far over the requirement there should be no argument. But Woolworths engaged in one anyway, stupidly so. If you are going to argue with a customer over 70 cents at least get the maths right first. The penalty for being petty tightwads? Priceless bad publicity on Australia's major online news outlet.
I do understand the difference you're making. In the end Woolworths is going to pick one procedure to cover all refunding scenarios, whether it's a customer returning an item or Woolworths unable to fulfill an item.
The outcome of scenario 1 would never happen because it would confuse customers to return an item and get nothing back.
(Customers may view this as the company being too greedy.)
Scenario 2 does provide good will and makes sense to the customer. It is an ideal outcome if you want to keep your customers happy.
A possible reason as to why it's not used is the potential of over refunding, but that shouldn't happen in too many cases.
(Company may view this as being too generous.)
The percentage off calculation would be used to prevent over refunding.
The issue that has caused this problem would have come from a poorly written computer algorithm. Looking at the article, the rep mentions an order saving of $36.41 which would have come from the $10 off $150, and other promotional deals e.g. Buy 2 for $3, Buy 2 Get 1 Free. I don't think it would come from saves (e.g. now $5 save $3).
The algorithm may have totalled the savings from all the promotions and then taken a constant percentage off of each item, instead of varying the percentage to the item's respective discounts.
@durd0008: Just to be clear, I completely agree with what you said.
Honestly, I don't really see what the issue is in this case.
The shopper was offered refund PLUS store credit, which is more than value of the muffin.
He is just being a pain.
What I'm trying to say by pointing out "met the conditions", is that once you've met those conditions, the discount is $10 over your entire order.
The discount was never advertised as $10 for the first $150 portion of your order, or $10 per $150 of your order. It was always advertised as $10 over your entire order, no matter how big the order is.
So it doesn't matter if he would have met the conditions without the muffins. Once the purchase was made, he paid 97.15% of the price of every item he's bought, including the muffins. In other words, he only paid $6.80 for his muffins.
Think of it this way - what happens if he tried to return every item on his shopping order?
What I'm trying to say by pointing out "met the conditions", is that once you've met those conditions, the discount is $10 over your entire order. … Once the purchase was made, he paid 97.15% of the price of every item he's bought, including the muffins. In other words, he only paid $6.80 for his muffins.
Exactly right!
Think of it this way - what happens if he tried to return every item on his shopping order?
This is the part that is incorrect. If he was returning an item, then yes, he should only be refunded $6.80, except this wasn't the case. At no point did he "return ANY item". That's the issue. (There is a big difference between (1) Customer returning item, and (2) Woolies being unable to fulfil a complete order.)
@bsmksg: How is it different at all?
If you agree that he only paid $6.80 for his muffins, then he should receive either muffins or $6.80. Why does it matter whether he initiated the refund or woolies initiated the refund?
Especially when it's the case that when you shop online, you agree that if they can't fulfil a order and can't substitute (or you didn't tick the substitute box), you will get a refund.
So essentially you've already agreed to the "will receive item, or receive back money paid for item" part.
Coleworths have their own brand of maths,
confuse the crap out of them with numbers+pocket the money=profit
I'd also like to add that 'Andy' is certainly not an ozbargainer after spending $350 with a $10 discount.
lol, love it
"I'd also like to add that 'Andy' is certainly not an ozbargainer after spending $350 with a $10 discount."
Cbf reading that whole article… Seriously all that over $0.70?! Not only the guy for going back and forth so much, but then the need to write an article over this $0.70 amount
Not only that but about halfway through he got a further $10 credit!
If the dude knew about CashRewards he would have gotten that $0.70 back skyway as cashback ;)
The problem lies in that Woolworths flawed logic just happens to work to their advantage.
I know what the situation entails. But the situation doesn't deserve a) the article, or any other written over it, and b) this forum post.
The promo code the guy in the article has used was this one
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/278167
For the first two days it was mistakenly giving 10% of the total bill instead of $10 off. The $36.41 discount didn't actually include any other promo deal
The article states that his shop was about 350 with discount $36.41 making his actual order $364.10
He should've received $10 instead got $36.41
I recieved a small refund on my order and it was correctly calculated.
With this extra information the correct refund was issued.
Either the guy didn't notice that he recieved 10% instead of $10 or questioned the refund as an opportunist especially after 12.05 came up.
Had to contact WW about delivery saver which said "2 days remaining" when there was only one day. Got a free delivery code and $10 coupon, but I didn't post about it on the news!!
I'll agree with Woolworth's method here due to the fact that if I ordered 2 items, ie a phone for $100 and $10 toilet roll. Total $110 and received for example a spend $100 get $10 off discount. If the phone was out of stock and they refunded the whole cost of the phone then my order would effectively be free for the remaining item.
Fairly sure that's why they work it out this way.
But if you ordered three phones and one toilet roll, and returned the toilet roll do you think you should get $0 or $10 back? Going by the responses from the Woolworths reps they'd probably argue that you get two cents and quote some incomprehensible percentiles to two decimal places, most likely that is also calculated wrong.
Here a free tip for Woolworths, forget coupons and all the hassles that go with them (case in point). Give better rewards, have better prices and have less objectional/obnoxious/miserable staff on the front line. One of the ladies at my local Woolworths shouldn't even be in customer service full stop given her stinky attitude, let alone be in charge of the service desk.
I don't even know how WW online works, especially with regards to out-of-stock items. But they should list a compensatory agreement in the t&cs. Otherwise they could run a bait-and-switch whenever they like to screw people over.
Using a compensatory percentage is only applicable once the voucher conditions fail. So in your case, above $100 you honour the voucher (i.e. full $10 off) but if the spend drops below $100 due to Woolworth stock-taking incompetence then a percentage can be applied (e.g. 10/100 = 10% off) as compensation. If they think 10% is too much for a stock-taking failure then they should at least give us an incentive to bother with the risk.
And I suppose Andy isn't an OzBargainer since you should split a $350 shop into two orders and click-and-collect to save $20.
From memory, in your cart, you can select whether you accept (equal or better) substitutes if the item is out of stock. Some people received 700g of meat instead of their ordered 500g.
The maths in that article is clearly wrong.
However the general principle of refunding by % discount you paid for is right I think. You shouldn't be refunded the full amount because you didn't pay the full amount.
The voucher is not $10 off for the first $150 spent, nor is it $10 off per $150 spent. It is $10 off your entire order, provided you meet the conditions (that you spend at least $150). So he received $10 off his order of $350, equating to a 2.85% discount.
It shouldn't matter what the conditions are (i.e. regardless of whether it was $10 off your order if you shop on a Wednesday, $10 off your order if you spend at least $30 from the meat department, or $10 off your order if you pay with a wish gift card) for obtaining the discount.
Therefore I personally think the fair thing would have been to refund him $7 * 97.15% = $6.80 OR $7.00 store credit, since he paid $6.80 to purchase $7.00 retail value of goods.