I recently ordered sunroof and windshield sunshades from stratmosphere, a bit pricey at about $100 total, but "custom fit". Six days after order placement (and an email from strat that shades would be delayed shipping), stratmosphere announced a 20% off sale here on the board. I called and asked that the sale price be extended to me since my order had not yet been filled. Answer, after asking politely by phone and email, was "Sorry, no." Certainly not the most delight-the-customer response.

The shades arrived and fit acceptably, but I'll not interact with stratmosphere again.

 

At least they said sorry.

 

I am a little surprised they did not change your price. I guess you could have cancelled the order and reordered under the lower price.

 

Tried to do that, too, but they would not allow it as my "order might already have shipped directly from the supplier"...

 

Not much else you could do. Thanks for the information.

 

Thanks! That sure helped me make a decision. Believe I'll scope out an alternative.

 

When you place an order with a lot of these companys they do not stock the stuff you are buying. They place their order with the manufacturer and that is who sends the parts to you. It is pretty well imposable for the selling company to change the paperwork after the items have been shipped.
It was not on sale when you purchased the item so It is just one of those things that happen every once in a while to all of us at sometime. It seems just about everything I ever buy goes on sale after I have it in my hands.

 

+1 on that -- there are plenty of reputable pros here to do business with ... Lyle at Lyles Vinyl Styles and Doug at Whalen Shift Machine both impressed me with their "done right, or money back" service.
If they wanted to keep that customer's goodwill, they should have found a way to adjust things somewhere --

 

I don't think they were out of line. I can't get coupons backdated at stores either. The product fit nicely, and you were satisfied with it. Sure 20% is nice, but not everyone has the profit margin of Amazon to back-date sales for 30 days.

 

Surprised they are usually a great vendor had a bunch of dealings with them for my Audis (nothing for the MCS yet). I would send a email complaint ASAP.

 

I filled up the other day at $4.19 a gallon. Drove by today and it was down to $3.99. I stopped in with my receipt and asked if I could have a $0.20 a gallon rebate on the gas I had bought earlier. All I got was a weird stare and "Tank yoo, cumageen!"

 

Very interest POV. Guess we are approximately 50-50 split on this one so far.

 

Ask them for the discount on future purchases.What do you have to loose 20% ?

 

I've gotta give props to Stratmosphere for all of my past Audi- and VW-related purchases. They've always treated me well, been super responsive to both emails and phone calls, and they've provided what I thought were good products at reasonable (not great) prices.

Seems that you caught them on a bad day, perhaps? I'll make no excuses for them, but just wanted to let others know that your experience may not be wholly representative.

I recommend calling or emailing them to explain your lack of satisfaction. So long as you're not asking for something crazy, they should listen to you and provide you with a reasonable solution or explanation. Good luck.

 

I don't see what the issue is, as far as I'm concerned your order was filled when you placed the order. You knew how much it was going to cost from the start and eventually received what you ordered after a slight delay. Am I missing something here? Everyone expects a free ride these days...

 

I ordered the same items (sunroof and windshield sunshades) after seeing the discount here, but forgot to put the code in during my order. I realized it the next day and called and they gave me a 20% refund. I think they're quite fair. I know I got a favorable result, but if they had said tough luck, I would have lived with it.

 

Your analogy doesn't quite fit... how about this one?

I went to the gas station last week and bought 9.3 gallons at $4.00 per gallon. They said, "sorry, but we don't actually have any gas to give you today, but pay us now and we will let you come pick it up tomorrow." When I stopped by to pick it up the next day, gas was down to $3.20 per gallon. I asked if I could have my gas for the 20% reduced price, since they hadn't actually given it to me yet. They told me "no" because their lot attendant may have already started filling my tank.

 

If you agree to pay $4.00 and to wait and pick it up tomorrow, then deal with it. Tell me this, if you showed up to pick up your gas and the price had gone up to $5.00 per gallon, would you tell them, "I know I already paid you $37.20 for the gas yesterday, but let me give you another $9.30 since the price went up." Something tells me you wouldn't.

 

No, but I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to charge me the added difference. And that company would not receive my future business -- same as a company that would not honor a reduced price in effect at the time of transaction of the goods. That's what the OP was commenting on.

In your original analogy, the transaction of goods had already happened and the driver was just looking for a do-over. My analogy was meant to better represent that, in the OP's situation, payment had been made but goods had not been transfered -- i.e., the transaction was still in progress during the price change.

In fact, most place I've dealt with don't charge you until your order has shipped, so the OP's situation may have even been a case where neither payment nor the transfer of goods had taken place when the price was reduced -- like if you order a $20 steak of a dinner menu, the restaurant drop the price to $16 before it gets to your table, then they charge you the $20 when you're done eating. Not a very smart way to run a business if you want repeat customers.

 

Conjecture and speculation.

Not my anology.

First off, the OP never said that he had been charged before the items shipped, but again, if the price at the time of shipping had gone up to $120 from $100 for the sunshades, would the OP have agreed to pay the difference? Not bloody likely!

Once again, if you agreed to pay $20 when you ordered it, you have nothing to complain about. Let's stick to the facts at hand. The OP agreed to a pay a certain price for a product. He received the product for the price he agreed to pay "at the time of transaction of the goods", i.e., when he submitted his order. Stratmosphere had already entered the order with their manufacturer and the manufacturer notified them of the delay. But the OP made the purchase from Stratmosphere, not the manufacturer. It's a free market. He and you have the right not to deal with them in the future, but quit complaining when you agree to a deal and then have regrets. The OP even got an e-mail telling him it was delayed and would have had every right to cancel at that time as well, but still he waited. Take some responsibility for yourself.

 

Yes, it was; I'm glad to see you can label things.
Not sure if you intended to go anywhere with that label, though.

Yeah, I had noticed that...

As far as I see it, the OP did take responsibility for himself, and is expressing his intent to not deal with them in the future due to their rather asinine behavior - which I was trying to better illustrate with my modification to whatshisname's analogy (sorry for attributing it to you at first -- you cranky people all look alike to me). Your "suck it up and quit bitching" tack isn't really relevant because a) he's not bitching, he has accepted the outcome and is merely relaying his disappointment with their customer service to others, and b) this is $20, it's not some kind of significant contract under dispute and on its way to court.

The deal itself isn't what matters here, it's the asinine and short-sighted behavior of the company (in this one instance, anyway) when they put having $20 in their pocket ahead of cultivating a good relationship with their customers. I would be willing to bet that they have lost more than $20 in future sales due to the disappointed OP and the others who read this and are similarly turned off.

I agree with you that the price he paid is what he agreed to pay at the outset and that the company is well within their right to charge him that amount - that's not in contention, but I disagree with your apparent view that the way they handled this situation is a good way to attract customers to a small business.

 

 

True....when we run a sale if there are orders that the customer has not received and they paid full price we send them a check in the mail for the diffrence....not that hard to do..its good business.

 

No matter how the company handled this someone would have been upset. If they had honored a future sale price on an item previously ordered and the OP had conveyed that message on here then others they had previously purchased the same item would be looking for a refund as well.

You did it for OP and he had ordered only a day after me, or only 2 days...but one hopefully sees my point. Prices change often, we all want a deal and will fight to get the lower price to the point of tossing a company that really did nothing wrong under a bus.

In essence the OP has now blackmailed the seller.

 

Welcome to retail. Everyone gets upset when they realize they could've gotten the item a little cheaper, had the variables been slightly different. When I worked in a camera shop, we'd have the same problems when we had our after Christmas sales. Folks who came in on Christmas eve buying a 1000$ camera wanted to come back after Christmas and get the deal where we threw in a printer and 100$ mail in rebate. It's just luck of the draw. Sorry you didn't get the best deal. Doesn't mean the company is mean or not worth dealing with. Just means they won't bend over backwards to accomodate every person who wants to haggle.