to not understand why people do this and think it's fucking stupid?

[geegollygosh1]

I own my own business selling products via a webpage.

Every now and then I will put on a sale, sometimes randomly, but also for things like Black Friday etc.. I always ensure that all orders have been fulfilled before doing this.

Every time I get customers contacting me acting aggrieved at the fact that an item they bought is now on sale. I understand its annoying but some of these people ordered their items literally weeks prior and will actually be pissed off that the items now on sale WEEKS after they bought it.

I do actually occasionally refund the difference to someone if its a recent order and they are polite in their request but I have people emailing weeks later and being really shitty about it.

Aibu to think this is fucking stupid? A sale has to have a start date surely it's not feasible to expect a refund for something weeks later just because it's now on sale and be annoyed about? Obviously I can't simply go back weeks and refund everyone the difference otherwise there would be no point ever having a sale.

I just don't understand why people do this.

For me my "limit" for requesting a refund of the difference is either the returns window if it's from a physical shop, it's a large difference between purchase price and the sale price, and I haven't yet used the item or if it's an online shop then my "limit" is whether or not I've received the item and how long ago I purchased it.

The other caveat is when it's an expected sale time - eg Black Friday/Cyber Monday for tech; End of season clothes sales - then I know I am taking my chances if I buy something around the time those sales are due to start and my purchase ends up being reduced.

I did it once in the store I work in - I needed a new hoover because mine had died a death, saw we were selling a decent branded one for £180 and planned to come and buy one on my day off when I came to do my weekly grocery shop that weekend. At this point I didn't have a car so walked to work, but on this particular day it started hammering with rain right before my hometime so I decided to book a taxi, and since I was getting a taxi anyway I figured I'd buy the hoover that day so I didn't have to lug it home with groceries at the weekend. Bought it, took it home, shoved it in the corner to wait till my day off on Saturday to have time to unpack it etc. Two days later on the Friday I walked into work to find the same hoover that was still in the box in my lounge on a massive sale stand for £90 ... No way was I paying 50% more if I didn't need to, especially as I hadn't planned to buy it until the weekend originally (and if any of my store colleagues had known it was going to go in the sale they would have given me a heads up to wait a couple of days). Fortunately my manager was really reasonable so when I explained what had happened and asked if she wanted me to bring it back in to show it was still boxed she was happy to just take my word for it and process the refund/re-sale because we both agreed that if it was a couple of ££ then I would be unreasonable to ask for a refund but for £90 (for someone on just over NMW) especially as it was still sealed in the box, it was totally reasonable.

Having said that, we were getting people abusing the refund/re-buy system to essentially "reserve" an item before a big sale - eg people buying large electricals etc ahead of our Black Friday sale, then bringing them back to refund/rebuy as soon as they go in the sale - so now we will not let someone bring the item back and then immediately repurchase the same actual item - any returns are now held at the customer service desk before being returned to the department to go back on the shelf. The customer is more than welcome to return their X, go and pick up a new X from the shelf and then purchase it again immediately but if there are no X's on the shelf then the customer has to take the chance that they will be at the shelf when the department staff return it to stock later on, they can't just demand "their" X back if they return it and then find the shelf empty.