Hidden costs and losing the sale.

We went to buy a new bed the other day. We’d already seen the one we wanted and we knew how much it was going to be.

So, we went into the store and had one final look at the bed to make sure it was the one we wanted. The price was £369, the same as in the brocuhers we had looked at. All good.

We went to the sales desk and told the salesperson which we wanted. She checked stock and took our details. And then: “OK, that’ll be £405 in total, please”. Now, beds are big and heavy items and I should have probably expected a delivery charge but it hadn’t even crossed my mind that I would be paying anything more the £369. Nowhere in the brochures or in store were any prices quoted as being + delivery.

I argued a bit about the extra charge and I thought 35 quid for delivery was a bit steep. Apparently the delivery charge was such because they had to travel a fair distance from the warehouse – not my problem. We couldn’t have the bed delivered to the store and pick it up from there, “no storage space” apparently.

By this time I was pretty p*ssed off to say the least. She still made the sale this time but lost any future custom from us. She also lost any word of mouth advertising.