The other day I posted about the new Kobalt Hypercoil LED worklight, which is available exclusively at Lowes. It’s a new flexible-neck LED flashlight/worklight with rechargeable li-ion battery and AA battery box.
I dropped a note to our Lowes/Kobalt PR contact to see if they could arrange for a test sample, but they’re at an event or tool show of some kind and wouldn’t be able to check on this until sometime next week. The Hypercoil LED worklight looks really neat, and I wanted to test it ASAP, so I went to order one online.
After a brief issue with my browser, the order went through. I opted for in-store pickup at my second closest Lowes location, which reportedly had 150+ units in stock.
Advertisement
A few minutes later I receive a come and get it email, so I print out the confirmation and hopped in the car. I was one minute down the road when I received a call from Lowes.
Sorry, we don’t have the item in stock. Since we cannot fulfill your order, we’re going to go ahead and cancel it.
The Lowes store associate was polite, apologetic, and prompt. I was disappointed, but appreciative that they called me when they did. Some stores (e.g. Sears) wait until you’re at the pickup kiosk for 10 minutes before they tell you they don’t have an item their website lists as being in stock.
Later that day I checked my order status, and instead of cancelled, it said processing. So I sent a quick email to Lowes customer service requesting confirmation of the cancellation.
This morning I received a call from Dawn, who was with Lowes customer care.
Dawn was polite and told me that she would be sending me an email with receipt confirmation of the order cancellation. She also informed me that the product has dropped in price and that, after looking up my zip code, shipping would be $5.99. (I will discuss this pricing difference in a little bit.)
Advertisement
If I ordered online and had the order shipped, I would be paying less than the $40 I ordered it for with in-store pickup the other day.
Dawn also said she would forward the matter to another team for investigation as to why I was able to order the product online for in-store pickup if it wasn’t available for fulfilment. If there was a problem with the website or ordering system, they want to fix it.
All 5 of the Lowes stores closest to me report to have 153 (±1) of these Kobalt Hypercoil LED worklights in stock. The store I ordered one from was unable to fulfil my pickup order, despite the online system showing that they have plenty in stock, suggesting that they and other stores have a display package of these in receiving with a “do not put on display until…” note or similar.
I believe that these stores have the Hypercoil in their back room, but cannot or have not put them on the sales floor yet. This makes sense and is perfectly understandable. After all, nobody has even heard of this product outside of Lowes and Kobalt except for me and now you guys.
Dawn called me back again after a couple of minutes, informing me that she spoke to the manager on duty at the location I placed my online in-store pickup order for, and he confirmed they have 150+ quantity in stock. They had received the shipment after I had placed my order that they couldn’t fulfill.
I told her that the Lowes.com website said this location had the item in stock before I placed the order for in-store pickup. She expressed concern that the manager might have said they had the item in stock without confirming they were physically in the store, and that she would call him back. If I see that the store has 150 units on my computer, that’s probably what their inventory system shows as well.
So I asked if I would be able to walk in and buy the item, or order for in-store pickup, and she’ll get back to me via email so that she doesn’t take up any more of my time. (Although, at no point did I feel bothered by the calls.)
I have experienced similar in-store purchasing and in-store pickup issues with Home Depot and Sears as well, where tools are in the computer system and listed as in-stock but not yet out on display, so it’s not just Lowes.
This customer service experience has really, really impressed me. Problems happen in retail all the time, and this issue could have been handled very differently. The store associate could have neglected to call and inform me that they couldn’t fulfill my order, and Dawn with the Lowes.com customer service team could have just sent a cancellation email and have been done with me.
In my opinion, Dawn went above and beyond to leave me with a positive customer service experience.
This all brings me to the “lower price” BS part.
I knew this would happen. The Kobalt Hypercoil LED worklight was priced at $40, or more accurately, $39.98. But, given Lowes’ holiday pricing history, I knew it would probably never sell at this price.
Quite frankly, I was surprised that the product was available for online purchase with shipping and in-store pickup options prior to the impending price drop.
I tried to purchase the product at its “full price,” because I wanted one in-hand for review as soon as possible. Lowes has a good price guarantee policy, so I was sure I would be refunded the price difference once the price dropped to its true price.
This lower price marketing language – it’s absolute nonsense. I tried to purchase the Hypercoil LED at its introductory price – or whatever we should call it – and was not able to. Maybe parcel shipping would have worked, maybe that order would have been cancelled too.
Retailers do this kind of thing all the time, with bogus list prices and whatnot, but that doesn’t make it right. Lowes always seems to do this with certain Kobalt tools – they list a product on their website, but you cannot buy it, and then they drop the price to what they intended to sell them for in the first place.
When you see a TV infomercial where they alway strike off one of the five payments, you know it’s BS. In this case, it’s not so obvious, and that to me makes the practice more deceptive.
I wouldn’t be so critical of Lowes’ unsavory marketing tactics if Kobalt wasn’t their exclusive house brand. I didn’t have the kindest of words about their “new” 20V Max cordless power tool marketing strategy either. But, truth be told, none of that will stop me from still trying to get my hands on one of these darned HyperCoil LED flashlights.
It seems strange to talk about Lowes’ exemplary customer service practices and BS deceptive marketing claims in the same post, but the whole customer service experience is how I am aware that these products weren’t realistically available prior to the “new lower price” and “save 25%” reductions.
I am sure that Lowes’ legal team gave the okay for them to advertise these tools online as being on sale at “new lower prices.” And when you see this and other new Kobalt holiday-timed products on display in stores, they will probably also have those eye-catching yellow tags saying the same. “WOW, new low price, was $39.98, now $29.98.”
If you ask me, it looks like Lowes might be in violation of FTC’s guidelines against deceptive pricing.
Section 233.1, part B:
A former price is not necessarily fictitious merely because no sales at the advertised price were made. The advertiser should be especially careful, however, in such a case, that the price is one at which the product was openly and actively offered for sale, for a reasonably substantial period of time, in the recent, regular course of his business, honestly and in good faith — and, of course, not for the purpose of establishing a fictitious higher price on which a deceptive comparison might be based. And the advertiser should scrupulously avoid any implication that a former price is a selling, not an asking price (for example, by use of such language as, “Formerly sold at $XXX”), unless substantial sales at that price were actually made.
From what I have observed, the new product – similar to other holiday-timed Kobalt products introduced in previous years – was not openly and actively offered for sale at their higher prices. Typically, the higher price pops up on the Lowes website before a product is actively available for sale, and only pops up again when the products are no longer available for purchase in-store or online. That is, you probably won’t see a $39.98 price tag on the Hypercoil LED product again until maybe February, long after it becomes hard to find online and in stores.
Update: I have heard back from Dawn at Lowes. I redacted the store locations and manager’s name.
I have contacted [your closest] store as well as the store [second closest to you] and have confirmed that the Kobalt Hypercoil Work Light Item #: 498288 | Model #: 63453 is not in-stock at this time. I am very sorry for the inaccurate information [the manager on duty] provided me this morning. I have reported this as a Lowes.com error and it will be reviewed.
It might seem like I’m being grumpy and over-critical, but how many times do sales convince all of us to buy products that we’re on the fence about? Discounts can be powerful motivators, but the illusion of a discount is deceptive, manipulative, and unfair.
Jason
It’s way too common Amazon does the same thing every day I get an email stating some super deal on power tools and the sale price is the price every other retail store is selling the tool for or darn close to the market price. Amazon always lists the discount on some insanely high msrp price that its double the normal price of the tool so they can have the great eye catching price of 40% off instead of reality it might be 10% off retail not a bad discount but not enough to make me drop everything and buy this tool. I will say they do have good deal that are worth buying but the email deal’s are so bs and they really should be called out on it. I just don’t have the patience to do it.
Nathan
I work at Lowe’s and these are out on the floor for sale already. Most likely the stores nearest you DO have them, but they’re “lost” in top-stock, only to be found at some time in the next month.
Michael Quinlan
I see this repeatedly at Home Depot and Lowe’s – specifically with regard to DeWalt 18V NiCd battery two-packs, with a repeating pattern of “regular” price of $120-ish, and a “new lower price” of $100-ish. I also see the same pattern and pricing with DeWalt’s 12V Max screwdriver kit.
It’s not the same thing I guess, since they actually sell the items at both prices, but I don’t get why they call is a new lower price instead of just a sale. A new lower price doesn’t prompt any urgency on the part of the buyer, but a sale price does.
Javier
My local Lowes says 254 in stock… Yeah right
Kevin
I can’t speak for the store you attempted to purchase from but if you had come into my store asking for it I would have gotten you one out of the back. No the product is not on the sales floor yet but it will be in a week or so. It sounds to me like this particular store is taking certain directives about Black Friday products to far. They should not have had any issues with you buying this product as it is not a one shot item for Black Friday. As far as the inventory counts you see on our website they should be accurate as long as the counts at the store are accurate. In saying that most products have a small buffer to prevent overselling.
Bill K
Stuart, you’re not alone with you experiences/feelings. About two months ago, my local Lowes had a Knipex clearance item I was interested in, so I went to the store and looked for the product without luck. I then went to the service desk and inquired. They electronically confirmed the item was in stock, but then could not find it in inventory. They explained it was an all to normal occurrence for the web inventory not to match inventory on the floor. Weeks later, I again checked the website and found my Lowes showed they had stock in hand. So this time, I ordered the item on line for store pick up, and the system accepted the order and I got a confirmation email. In the days following, my Lowes called about my order and said the item was not in stock and they would be refunding me for the unfulfilled purchase, again apologizing for the error in their electronic inventory. Just this week I was in Lowes and looked for Knipex inventory and found none. Just tonight I found some Knipex still listed on the inventory for my store. From the sounds of it, Lowes inventory system is known to be problematic and known discrepancies are not corrected. This reflects poorly on Lowes and that’s to bad as Lowes does so many other things so well….. just as Stuart said.
Jason
I did run into some issues with the Knipex items during the clearance of the tools. I got pretty much everything I wanted, but I ran it to the same problem they couldn’t find the item turns out during the reset it was either moved to the clearance area or put on a upper rack somewhere. Their inventory is not nearly as good as the one home depot uses. The Lowes by me were still using text terminals to do special orders of items Lowes wasn’t spending money on upgrading their IT.
Jim
Regarding your comments about the Knipex inventory accuracy, here are a couple points to consider. At some point in time, there was an accurate inventory count within the four walls of the store. Either from the instance of a single initial receipt or a physical or cycle count of the SKU. This point in time (in the case of an annual physical inventory) could have been up to 364 days ago.
In the meantime, the inventory is accurately depleted by unit sales and incremented by additional inbound receipts. But, the following unrecorded events also occur. People steal stuff. Customers are messy and move stuff all over the store, place them on the wrong hooks, mix the PVC fitting up, etc. Salespeople use store stock; tools needed to assemble gas grills, etc.
And, errors at the register; a clerk scan a single SKU and inputs a quantity of 30, when it is actually composed of 2 different SKUs of 15 each (this is why many store force the cashiers to scan every single item and not use the quantity function. The quantity is then often calculated and presented onto a single line on your receipt). So, inventory counts in retail are inherently inaccurate. Especially for higher priced small items. (Rolls of fiberglass insulation do not often get pilfered).
Finally, there is the concept of an intervening update. When you order something online from store inventory, it is not like buying a specific seat for a ballgame or making a reservation on an item in an access controlled warehouse. It is an active retail store. At the specific point in time you ordered the item, someone could already have it in hand and be heading to the checkout counter. Or, it could be purchased before the attempt is made to pull it from the active working inventory. There is no method to reserve the item from an active retail sales floor (a suggestion, assuming 100% accurate inventory, that you could block a sale at the register if someone attempted to purchase it is not even remotely practical).
With ‘Clearance’ items, people are trolling for them all the time, me included. So the chance of someone snapping up a limited supply item before your order is picked, increases.
True Story. I had the situation with a Makita grinder on ‘Clearance’ that I was ‘considering’, so I hid it in the store. It was not a priority, so I just forgot about it. About two months later, I went looking and it was right where I hid it. I was curious about the price, so I took it through self-checkout. Unbelievably, it rang up at $0.01. Later, I asked somebody and they confirmed that after a while, they zero inventory and reduce discontinued items down to $0.01 and keep the item active to support returns. I asked what if you find one, will you sell it at the price. He stated, that if that was the price in the system (and the cashier would most likely have information from the system confirming it was discontined), they would sell it at that price.
Javier
Someone worse than lowes and amazon is harbor freight. Everything on the floor seems to be on sale all the time.
george
I have always felt that the sale price is the real price. I also just about never buy anything at the normal price especially if its on the high side. but this issue doesn’t surprise me at all. they do their little dance and we (I) do ours. I also never saw the knipex sale. also, a lamp like that is just not worth that $40 price just by looking at it. $15 and I might look at it.
Hang Fire
Americans have been conditioned not to buy anything that’s not discounted, couponed, or clearanced, so the industry has responded by fixing false MSRP’s and starting sales at a “discounted” price. In a way this protects the industry, if it ever is accused of, say, defrauding a government purchaser, they can say, well, you bought it at X% under MSRP, you just didn’t get the best discount when it went on sale later that month, but at least you didn’t pay “full retail”.
False MSRP’s also serve another purpose, and that is punishing the grey market. Authorized distributors pay customs duty at the actual invoice/wholesale price. If an non-authorized importer shipment of retail-purchased goods gets flagged for customs duty review for possible improper value declaration, the customs clerk can use MSRP as the fallback valuation. Ouch.
KL
Stu I honestly expected 5 comments saying you’re a whiner, etc etc and I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t think you’re nit-picking or being overly critical, but rather merely stating the facts and your opinions (which I agree with).
While I have near zero experience with Lowe’s, I’ve been confused by Home Depot’s use of “New Lower Price.” To me this infers a long-term, “everyday” new lower price. But it seems to them this means sale price good for only as long as the flyer or circular is valid. This cost them a sale in one case as I figured I could pick up an item later, but when I returned it had jumped back up to the “regular price” (and stayed there).
In another case my local grocery store raised the price of a canned good that I regularly buy. It stayed there for about two weeks (probably to have enough sales to meet the FTC guidelines quoted above), then dropped to a “new lower price” prominently displayed as such; problem of course was that the “new lower price” was still quite a bit higher than the price before they started messing with it two weeks ago.
Carolyn Dykes
I went to buy a lock that Lowes had in its Black Friday ad. When I asked about the item I was told they don’t even carry it. Not only did they not carry it at my store but they did not carry it at any store. I could not even order it online. I do not know why a store would put a sale item in the store they do not even carry. Ended up getting it at Amazon for an even lower price.
Stuart
The only thing I could think of is that Black Friday items sometimes show up as seasonal stock and are classified differently.
Adam
If they didn’t have any at any store, then there would be some retail laws that were broken. Stores that advertise something in an ad, have to have stock of that item. It may only be one per store, but they have to have it. Otherwise you are looking at bait-&-switch tactics which is a big no-no.
While working at the only big electronics store left, we would often have to pull items before the next Sunday ad, so that we didn’t risk not having any in stock. Laws may vary state to state, but I know 2 states that this wouldn’t fly in.