Commission Commerce imposes hefty fine for website’s misleading ‘today only’ deals.
The 1-Day.co.nz website owned by The Warehouse Group now automatically redirects to themarket.com.
The deception involved misleading customers over how long ‘daily deals’ would last for, and stock quantities available. This was done to give an impression that stock and time was running out to create a sense of urgency, when in reality the deals were rolled over consecutive days and stock was available.
Commerce Commission General Manager of Fair Trading Vanessa Horne told RNZ, “In a physical store, we wouldn’t expect a retailer to say there’s one item left, when a number of items remain on the shelf or in the stockroom. The same goes for online – any representation about available stock needs to be truthful.”
Warehouse group somewhat reflects what happened in NZ in the last four decades. It started as a venture with good objective, creativity, afforable quality etc. Cusomers had a sense of belonging. Quality AEG appliances were sold with reasonable margin.
It has no become a junk yard for poor quality items sold with a high markup; no relevance to the import cost. Virtue signalling a lot with green washing, support for local etc. In reality, physical stores are poorly organised and managed. Greedy expansion based on borrowed loans and enlarged capital occured. Not many fiund vakue for money and this is what you get when very highly paid executives run the business. Short term profit motive, rely on too much advertisement etc. Public own most shares and so the game goes on but for how long.