Mass Effect 3 and Dick Smith Sales: Has False Advertising De

[News Portal]

Are you mad at the Dick Smith sale, or infuriated by BioWare's statements about what Mass Effect 3 was going to contain? Have you been misled by false advertising? Our resident gaming laywer Patrick Vuleta breaks it down.

Read full article by Patrick Vuleta

[Bluefire]

lol should have seen the dicksmith store down here.. new store.. and as far as I could tell had NO stock at all to clear... not one item.

[Joshsux]

lol should have seen the dicksmith store down here.. new store.. and as far as I could tell had NO stock at all to clear... not one item.

That was expected though wasn't it ? they were only clearing old stock / discontinued items, Why would a new store have old / discontinued items ?

[Drakand]

Dick, however, fell short.

I hate it when that happens.

Great article as always, was very eager to read this when you mentioned you were going to be doing it the other week, i'm always interested in this side of the business and it was great to have some clarification or more details shed upon it,

thank you!

[brainbeat]

I did not manage to get into a store myself by a mate who did go managed to get at least 1 of the $2 games and $2 wiimotes for me around 1pm yesterday. He did say there were still a few of the $1 games and some other items still cheap too so it can't have been all stores with no stock.

[Mugsy]

Managed to get a few good PS3 games from both sales:

LA Noire - $5
Resident Evil 5 Gold - $5
Sega Mega Drive Collection - $5
Red Dead Redemption - $4.25
FIFA 11 - $4.25
Medal of Honour - $4.25
Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One - $8.50

Was considering Rage at $17 but decided I had enough co-op games for my bro and I to play through already.

[PinothyJ]

This is not fair for Dick Smith. DS have these kind of sales all the time and the only reason this was such a failure was because people knew about it. JB Hifi have these sale lists every week and if I leaked them when I worked for them you would be lining up outside your local outlet to get that drastically reduced old stock and be equally as disappointed that Woden is the only store with stock.

I do not know how DS handle the aftermath of the leak and maybe it is how they sorted that that makes them the bad guys, but with the evidence supplied in all the stories on GoN, there seems to be a lot of misrepresented molehills around these parts.


Calling it simply as I see it…

[Adambjjoz]

This is not fair for Dick Smith. DS have these kind of sales all the time and the only reason this was such a failure was because people knew about it.

The public heard rumours when finding the leaked sale items / lists online. There was no issue there. But then after the leak, Dick Smith actually confirmed the whole thing & provided sale dates and times via their companies official social media pages (Twitter/etc...). Not just random staff at random stores telling mates, etc.... It was the companies actual corporate comm's/marketing people who confirmed full details of the sale.

That IS bait advertising.

[Marius]

there seems to be a lot of misrepresented molehills around these parts.

Well, these are the three facts the article was based on:

1. A leak was made.
2. The sale was broadcast to hundreds of thousands of people via social media by the company's official representatives.
3. Australian law prohibits advertising without sufficient stock to back it up.

Your example wouldn't actually be illegal, I don't think, because your advertising pull is rather small and limited to who you can personally tell, so the stock the store would have to have to meet this personal advertising would also be small. But it changes if you were to have access to the social media marketing of a national chain.

[Wolfstar90]

If you honestly believe every piece of advertising you hear, you're bound to be disappointed. This doesn't excuse false advertising, but as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

[coatsy22]

If you honestly believe every piece of advertising you hear, you're bound to be disappointed. This doesn't excuse false advertising, but as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

That would make sense if noone got the cheap price. But lots of employees certainly did as ebay showed . It wasnt untrue for some

[Novocaine]

Mass Effect 3 and Dick Smith Sales: Has False Advertising Deceived You?

I'm not interested in ME3, and I don't shop at DSE, so no :P

[Nekosan]

I think their mistake was in not making it more clear that it was simply a clearance sale, a large part of the blame also lies with all the Aussie games sites who talked it up to be something that it just wasn't, welcome to the downside of social media... sometimes things get out of control.

[zakynthos]

a large part of the blame also lies with all the Aussie games sites who talked it up to be something that it just wasn't

you have to be kidding me? your blaming gaming sites for dick smiths underhanded tactics??

[Devourer221]

a large part of the blame also lies with all the Aussie games sites who talked it up to be something that it just wasn't

you have to be kidding me? your blaming gaming sites for dick smiths underhanded tactics??

i worked in retail/games retail for a while and from my experience with what happened this wasn't an intentionally underhanded tactic.

there was a leak dick smith said yes the leak is correct that was not advertising made on their part and certainly not an underhanded tactic.

When I worked at TGG we would have laptops for sale for rediculous prices and they would end up getting sold ridiculously fast later in the day and im talking between 12-5 when we opened at 9 would come in and say it was bait advertising yada yada yada because we didn't have any stock.

I will admit i did see HN do it quite a fair bit with stuff like Compaq laptops etc where they would put them up for cheap prices and only have like 4 for a 3 day sale. technically being where the store was located they got away with it due to being rural and "not expecting" such large numbers =.=.

my take on it is that Dick Smith did nothing wrong, it was as was said before a leak that got spread so much it ran out of control.