Hello from Amazon.com.
We are sorry to report that we will not be able to obtain the following item(s) from your order:
Wizards Miniatures Team "Player's Handbook Heroes: Series 1
Assortment: A D&D Roleplaying Game Accessory (D&D Miniatures Product)"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/078695311X
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Even if the deal they were counting on to offer the full set discount fell through, they should just send the shipments anyway and absorb any losses. It would be better public relations, and is more in keeping with their pre-order police that you get the lowest price offered between when you make your order and when it ships.
Then I get notice that the complete set is delayed. Then I get notice that the my complete set order is canceled. I'd switch back to the individual ones, but I'm frankly sick of chasing after these things and I'm worried my orders for the individual ones will be canceled as well, at this point.
I must say this feels like a load of BS. Amazon is still selling the individual hero packs, so they'll have the inventory.
Even if the deal they were counting on to offer the full set discount fell through, they should just send the shipments anyway and absorb any losses. It would be better public relations, and is more in keeping with their pre-order police that you get the lowest price offered between when you make your order and when it ships.
The full set was a specific product they were offering... not their own "We'll just package all of them together and sell them as a set!" Amazon doesn't do that. If a product isn't going to be offered, then they don't sell it. Expecting them to suddenly make up their own package deal because a product ended up not being offered by the company selling it is a bit silly.
As another example, if a movie company decided to sell a reduced cost collection of all the James Bond movies on Blu-Ray and later decided to not offer it or didn't offer it to the distributer Amazon uses, why should you expect Amazon to eat the cost of sending you each individual one? Not their product, not their fault.
As another example, if a movie company decided to sell a reduced cost collection of all the James Bond movies on Blu-Ray and later decided to not offer it or didn't offer it to the distributer Amazon uses, why should you expect Amazon to eat the cost of sending you each individual one? Not their product, not their fault.
You're right, it's not Amazon's fault, but it would still be good customer relations for them to honor all pre-orders.
Also, in this case WotC was to my knowledge never offering a special complete set version of the hero minis. By the product description it seemed clear that what was being offered by amazon was a bundled set of the six individual packs. Had WotC canceled the entire hero mini line Amazon would of course have no choice but to cancel all order, as they can't ship products they don't have, but that's not the case.
I suspect Amazon either 'timed out' the order because of the delay in products until May or they lost their distribution of the minis, possibly just having their order cut so cancelling hte 'package deal' so they can break them up into individual packs.
Also what price were you getting on them from Amazon? With my B&N membership after free 3day shipping and taxes (roughly 10%) I paid 64$ for my assortment.
Well my pre-order of the Assortment from Barnes & Noble hasn't been cancelled so I don't think it's that WotC has cancelled this arrangement. From the packaging of mini's in the past from them the assortment is basically just a single case of the PHB minis (one of each pack and since they're all visible and non-random no reason to do it another way).
I suspect Amazon either 'timed out' the order because of the delay in products until May or they lost their distribution of the minis, possibly just having their order cut so cancelling hte 'package deal' so they can break them up into individual packs.
Also what price were you getting on them from Amazon? With my B&N membership after free 3day shipping and taxes (roughly 10%) I paid 64$ for my assortment.
The Amazon price for all 18 minis was lower - $41? I don't recall exactly, but I had been planning to buy from them...
The Amazon price for all 18 minis was lower - $41? I don't recall exactly, but I had been planning to buy from them...
$40.92 to be exact, compared to a total of $52.74 to order all 6 packs individually.
... and now this.
Right now I'm not sure if I'm still getting them or not... I might just wait and get them from the secondary market, after all, among the packs there aren't many minis I liked.
"Here is a coin for your troubles"
Not their product, not their fault.
it IS their fault! they offered it to customers! it's their fault if they cannot give what offered...
No, it isn't their fault. If they offered based off pre-release info and then they couldn't get it fromt heir distributor after teh fact it isn't their fault. I'm sure it would make you feel better if it was.
it's not that someone forced them to make those offers prior to having the stuff available: they chose to do so to earn more.
they made a deal, and then broke it.
There certainly was no binding deal made. You can keep on thinking it's their fault... I'll stay in the real world and be content they don't owe me (or you or anyone else) a single thing.
they made a deal, and then broke it.
That's why Amazon's terms of business specifically state that no deal is made until the product is send out and that the automatic response you're send after your order is not an order confirmation but merely a notification that they have received your request to order something
in Italy (not sure about the rest of Europe), a shop is not free to choose its customers: any one asking to buy what you sell must be served. And a deal is made the instant a customer "accepts" to buy what is proposed at the exposed price: the shop cannot opt out after that.
of course, there may be exeptions, but that's more or less how it's supposed to be around here.
I know US habits are not the same, though. That's probably part of how we perceive this fact differently.
A company can advertise to sell something at a price and not honor it with no legal ramifications.
As someone in Australia that just seems nutty to me and falls under false advertising (which has legal ramifications).
Although I would be very surprised if Australia had laws forcing companies to honour preorders for a particular product if that product is cancelled. No matter how you look at it, that would just be plain silly.
Most likely. Here in the US a price advertised in a sales flyer is not a legally binding contract either. It's, in retail legal parlance, an invitation to sell at that price. A company can advertise to sell something at a price and not honor it with no legal ramifications. However, the social ramifications are somehting else. A business that does that would quickly find itself without customers.
...and that's the reason his whole debacle has left a bad taste in my mouth. I understand that Amazon can't really be held responsible, and that they are in no way obligated to honor anything, but given the fact that they are still stocking the individual packs, I feel that it's bad customer relations to not go a head and ship those to pre-order customers at the bundled price.
As someone in Australia that just seems nutty to me and falls under false advertising (which has legal ramifications).
Yes, False Advertising does, but at least in the US, an advertised sale price doesn't constitute false advertising. There are conditions in which it could be (bait and switch for example). Thus spake the legal eagles at one of the major retail chains I worked at.
...and that's the reason his whole debacle has left a bad taste in my mouth. I understand that Amazon can't really be held responsible, and that they are in no way obligated to honor anything, but given the fact that they are still stocking the individual packs, I feel that it's bad customer relations to not go a head and ship those to pre-order customers at the bundled price.
Not trying to pick on you Tharag, just using your post as an example.
i feel the need to get my rant on.As someone who worked in retail for far too many years that I'd like to forget, a lot of it in Customer Service, I call this Customeritis. In the rush to try to keep customers coming back companies have allowed people to get away with demanding more and more to the point where it's gotten ridiculous. It's gotten to the point where people feel that the company should give up the farm in the name of "Customer Service." It has become a sense of entitlement.
Now in this situation, it's a minor thing... believe me I have seen much worse and/or outrageous demands in my days of customer service. And I have seen companies kowtow to those ridiculous demands. I remember a manager telling us once "I don't care if they want the front doors. If they want it, give it to them." It's a stupid attitude. Why have returns policies, etc. if you won't enforce them? Dumb dumb dumb...
Ah... the stories I could tell... but I digress. The simple fact is: Would it be nice if they did that? sure, it would be nice. Don't get me wrong. Is it wrong if they don't? Absolutely not. Are we entitled to them doing that for us? No. Is it poor customer service? That's debatable depending on the attitude of the customer. You could argue it either way. Ultimately the biggest voice in it is money. If you despise them for not giving you the individual packs, you may decide to not to spend any more money at Amazon (but I bet if someone felt this way, they still would... too many years of hearing people say "I'll never shop here again!" and then I see them back in the store the same day next week like clockwork). If everyone who had their order canceled did that, it would send a message to them. It's unlikely though. I can't think of many stores (except maybe for a FLGS) who would sell the individual packs at the bundle price if they ended up not being able to get them. Even in an FLGS it may be bad for them because they'd be hit harder by it since they operate on a much smaller economic scale.
Personally, i think you'll find that orders from other retailers will ultimately end up canceled as well. That's just wild speculation based on the fact that a bundle pack never showed up in the WotC release schedule.
As for Amazon I couldn't say what caused the cancellation other than how they have their ordering system set up. Maybe the SKU or their internal product ID for the assortment was removed for some reason so it cancelled any orders for that product ID.