Purchased goods online seller says they shouldn't have been on website

[Tirchonaill]

Hi I'm hoping for a bit of advise. I bought something on line on black Friday. It was reduced by £75 to £199.
I paid by PayPal.
This evening I have received an email from the company stating that the goods were for instore purchases only and should not have been put on the website.
They have refunded me back into my PayPal account.
However similar bundles are still on the website.
I cannot find another set at this price.
What are my options.
I'm in a off mainland postcode if it makes a difference.

Buy one of the similar bundles? They’re not obliged to accept your order if it’s a mistake.

Did you get an email confirming that all good and being shipped or was it just PayPal.

It’s pretty much impossible to get them to honour the deal under these circumstances. In legal terms, they made an invitation to treat, you made an offer and it wasn’t accepted.

The similar bundles are an item short compared to the one I ordered.

I also received confirmation of the order by email including an order number

Here is an old but good summary: www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/money-saving-tips/10602641/Price-glitches-Do-retailers-have-to-honour-pricing-mistakes.html

There’s not a lot you can do about it. They don’t have to honour a sale so long as they refund you in full and notify you. They couldn’t demand you paid extra for the item once you’d already received it, but they can refuse a sale and don’t necessarily have to give a reason. It’s a myth that shops have to sell you something for the price it is labelled with. They have to take all those items which are incorrectly priced off sale if they are refusing to sell it to you (which it sounds like they have done), but they are under no obligation whatsoever to sell the item to you. Unfortunately when buying things on the internet the item is not “sold” until the retailer has received the money and has dispatched the item. Up until this point you are simply offering to purchase rather than actually having purchased.

I don't think it's a mis pricing issue. The reason given for refunding was that they shouldn't have been sold online just in house. I know that that is still an invitation to treat but it's frustrating.
I think it's all an excuse and they don't want to post due the cost as postage was free.

Possibly- or that they want to restrict it to people in the immediate vicinity of the shop, or entice you in to buy more.

I don’t think it will affect the legal position. I can’t see how it can.

The fundamental question is whether a contract was formed. That depends on the seller's terms and conditions which should be on their website. Many say that they only accept your offer when they despatch the goods to you, so there is no contract up to that point. If this seller says that or something similar I'm afraid there isn't anything you can do about it. However, if their terms and conditions say that the contract is formed when they receive your payment or when they send an email confirming your order, they are in breach and you can take action. You may also have a case if the email confirming your order is worded in such a way that it would lead a reasonable customer to believe that a contract has been formed.

If this is a larger online retailer I would expect them to have got this right and made sure that there is no contract until they actually ship the goods. However, if it is a smaller retailer they may not have taken appropriate precautions to protect themselves against problems.

It is a small retailer who have had payment and issued a comfirmation email on 23/11 in the morning and did not issue a refund or send a cancellation email until 5.30pm the following Tuesday nearly 3 full working days. I cannot see anything in their online t&c's about the formation of cancellation of online contracts.

Do their terms refer to acceptance of your offer? If not, it is down to what the confirmation email says. If it says they have accepted your order you have a contract which you can enforce. If it merely confirms that they have received your order you probably don't have a contract.

Can you screenshot their email maybe?

Have attached 2 screenshots of the emails.

I have now found the same package on their website for a higher price. The reason I missed it was the photo is different.

I would read that email differently...

We had one bundle to sell - we advertised online and in our shop. Someone called in to the shop and bought it. We didn’t remove the bundle from our online shop quickly enough and you paid for it. It’s now out of stock. Sorry but we have refunded your money.

Ah crossed post - forget what I said!

There is nothing in that email saying whether or not your order had been accepted. You therefore need to look at their T&Cs. Screenshot it. What does that say about when there is a binding contract?