Purplus and confused

Some friends of mine are still in grad school and they needed a copy of Adobe Acrobat to make .pdf files.  One of them found a good price, or so she thought, at Purplus Software.  Not being an Adobe expert, she ordered what she thought was the appropriate product, for $124.95. Mysteriously, they received an email that the credit card was declined. My friend is notoriously efficient, and cut/pastes their credit card information from a flash drive file, so it is virtually impossible to make a mistake. Perhaps a transposition on the dates?? The CSV code is easy to remember.   

In a hurry, she went back online and put another order through. Haste makes waste is the saying. The price for Adobe Acrobat was $165.95. Out of curiosity she went back to their website and found that they offered an Adobe Acrobat for $97.95.  She requested a price refund for the difference and was refused.  She was also told that she would probably incur a restocking fee if she returned it.  Because they needed to use the software, they did not have the luxury of time and had to use the software.  My friend has major health issues, so simply running to the store is not an option for her. 

I was so floored that a product could have three prices, but here’s what I was told via emails sent to her:

The first order was for item product ID# 8345. Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard Academic.  That was the one she initially ordered for $124.95.

The second time she ordered, somehow her search for Adobe brought up Adobe Acrobat 6 Standard, $165.95, which at the day I am writing this, is no longer on their website. 

The third offering of Adobe Acrobat 6 Standard was for $97.95. That item is also no longer on their website.  I do have to acknowledge that it is an abnormally low price so perhaps that was a web pricing error.  My friend really just wanted a price adjustment, ideally from the lowest priced item they were currently selling, but she would have been happy for a price adjustment to the item she first ordered. No dice.

Katie, from Customer Service told her that, “My boss has informed me that we cannot match the previous price as the price we paid for the particular software that you ordered (which was CD with manual, and the one we are currently selling is OEM) was higher than the price of the new software we just received. You may refuse the package however please note we do charge a 15% restocking fee for returned unopened items.”

I looked at the materials that came with the highest price software my friends were charged for, and it too, was OEM for Dell.  Obviously the OEM story doesn’t pan out. We all know that ordering online can be risky, but generally most companies that care about their reputation make stellar efforts to be fair and equitable towards their customers. I can’t help but feel that in this case, this is a company that just didn’t care to go that extra mile.

Comments

[marvin]

I'm doing a paper about the merchandise liquidation and got this post. Its not where I was looking for but it is a good article for my Finance class... Very professional blog.

[Creatine]

In all fairness to software companys, since I work in the field, software prices drop and increase dramatically, it's not like going to the store and buying milk which remains a pretty constant cost; this is like going to the gas station and seeing the prices down one day and up another. You usually don't see a gas station that is priced a couple dollars below the one across the street- gas prices are regulated, and thats not the case with software (for the most part). I'm not trying to argue your point here, however to further explain this line of business you are dealing with, take a car dealership. If you bought the top of the line model for a certain amount and the next week they lowered the price, do you think you'd get a price difference? I think not. Like I said, I'm not trying to knock the fact that you said it didn't feel like the company "cared", however when a business must maintain a certain structure of procedure due to ridgity of the market their involved in, they follow a procedure that doesn't keeps them afloat. It sounds to me like in this case the price change was out of their hands.

[Consumer Maven]

The focus of our blog is branding as defined by a customer’s experience. While you make an interesting comment about the industry, and we could go on and on about pricing changes, our point regarding the Purpus issue was that the type of shopping experience our friend had was far from what would be considered excellent customer service. Don’t forget, she had previously tried to make an online purchase within a short period of time that was not honored, received three different prices and was basically lied to that she would not be receiving OEM software. Prices on many products can fluctuate, but price fluctuation is not what we are looking at. We are looking at how customers are treated and how that affects a company's reputation, ie., their brand equity. Thanks for visiting and contributing.

[Maytri]

I, too, recently used the Purplus online store and was shocked to find such a low price on a particular item. I ordered it using paypal through their website and about a week later received a package in the mail. Instead of the product I ordered, I received two other, apparently random CDs. I was confused to say the least.

I also sent Katie an email and the response I got was along the lines of 'sorry for the confusion, we'll mail you the right product tomorrow.' Strangely (it takes about a week for shipping, so that means they must have shipped it a week prior to me receiving the email), in the mail the next day I received the CORRECT product, along with two envelopes I assume were to be used to mail back the first two CDs. They didn't provide postage or any information on how or where to send the two CDs.

Anyways, I had a busy week and was going to put off the whole issue for a few days (after exams). Strangely enough, when I checked the mail about a week after receiving the correct CD, I received a SECOND correct CD.

Now I'm sitting here with two of the item I ordered, and two items I didn't order, and no correspondence from Purplus at all.

According to my paypal account, I only paid for one product plus shipping.

All I can surmise is this company doesn't keep very efficient book-keeping.