The Super-Duper Cheap Bargains Thread

[Harry]

DECCA, Australian Eloquence CD'S 40 titles, 3,99 € at JPC de

https://www.jpc.de/s/Australian+Eloquence+g%C3%BCnstig?searchtype=campaigntext

[The new erato]

Come on all, get this on 2 CDS for 4 Euros and Discover the marvel that is Handel's operas:


Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759)

Orlando; Arleen Auger, Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

[Jo498]

Double check you shopping cart with that offer. I had the Kempff Brahms in there, it vanished. And while it shows up in the bargain selection again, if you put it in the cart, it jumps from 3,99 to 19,99 regular price. I don't know if this is a bug or a feature of a limited offer.

[The new erato]

Offer prices aren't for ever, and the price in Your shopping cart may jump up if the offer expires. The prices on checkout are always correct however and it is, as you say, wise to check everything before you hit the CDCDCD button.

[Harry]

Offer prices aren't for ever, and the price in Your shopping cart may jump up if the offer expires. The prices on checkout are always correct however and it is, as you say, wise to check everything before you hit the CDCDCD button.

In the case of the DECCA Australian Eloquence they are 3,99€. The action started this morning.
I ordered quite a few, and the price was 3,99.

[Jo498]

I tried it at least three times and finally skipped the Kempff. It was always the same: It showed up in the offer @ 3.99, I put it in the cart and it either vanishes there or jumps to 19.99. I got the Orlando instead although I already have Christies recording and hardly listen to that stuff anymore. Maybe I can cull the Christie (fat big box) and save space if I prefer the Hogwood.

[ritter]

I think the problem arises when they run out of stock, i.e. from "Artikel am lager" to "lieferbar innerhalb XXX (soweit verfügbar beim Lieferanten)". The only thing that caught my attention was the 2 CD set of 20th Century Italian orchestral music conducted by Previtali and Santi. This morning it was at 3.99 €, now it's at 19.99 €. Well, I wasn't that interested in it....

[The new erato]

My point exactly. Offers run out.

[Jo498]

No you are missing part of my point. If an offer runs out it should not appear in the offer listing anymore or appear with the normal price and suddenly vanish from or jump in price in the shopping cart. This is at least poor programming of the offerings and special prices.

I also got the italian stuff, it interested me sufficiently for 3,99 and the amazon reviewer claims the sound is very good for late 1950s.

[Ken B]

No you are missing part of my point. If an offer runs out it should not appear in the offer listing anymore or appear with the normal price and suddenly vanish from or jump in price in the shopping cart. This is at least poor programming of the offerings and special prices.

I also got the italian stuff, it interested me sufficiently for 3,99 and the amazon reviewer claims the sound is very good for late 1950s.

Why shouldn't it jump in price in the shopping cart after it has run out? "Today only complete Sony catalogue $1" so I add it to my cart. I go back two days later why would it still be $1?

[Jo498]

Sorry, I am saying it now for the third time: After it has run out it should not be displayed in the offer page anymore. Or second best it should be displayed on the offer page but with the regular price. I went back to the offer page several times within 5 minutes or so (not hours or days) and all the time it was still listed at a reduced price. So I could not know if there had been some kind of mistake or flub because it appeared exactly as if the offer HAD NOT RUN OUT.
That I can drop it from the cart when I see the real price in the cart is at best a third best solution.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Sorry, I am saying it now for the third time: After it has run out it should not be displayed in the offer page anymore. Or second best it should be displayed on the offer page but with the regular price. I went back to the offer page several times within 5 minutes or so (not hours or days) and all the time it was still listed at a reduced price. So I could not know if there had been some kind of mistake or flub because it appeared exactly as if the offer HAD NOT RUN OUT.
That I can drop it from the cart when I see the real price in the cart is at best a third best solution.

I don't know who you are arguing with. Anyone will agree that there is a glitch in their listing. There is no software of any level of complexity that doesn't have bugs and my experience is that this is a very commonly occurring sort of nuisance when vendors put in a special sale. Probably stock has run out on the sale item and the system is letting you order at the regular price for eventual re-stock. Time to move on, or maybe send them an email if it is really that important to you.

[Pat B]

I don't know who you are arguing with. Anyone will agree that there is a glitch in their listing. There is no software of any level of complexity that doesn't have bugs and my experience is that this is a very commonly occurring sort of nuisance when vendors put in a special sale. Probably stock has run out on the sale item and the system is letting you order at the regular price for eventual re-stock. Time to move on, or maybe send them an email if it is really that important to you.

From what Jo has described, it is a clear bug, and I appreciate the warning. The three people who responded previously apparently did not agree that there was a glitch, hence Jo's subsequent clarifications.

[JBS]

And Kempff Brahms is no longer listed on the offer page. Nor is that Italian orchestral item.

Jo, were you trying to place that order during normal business hours, or after? Perhaps the listings needed to be deleted manually when someone at JPC realized the item was out of stock.

[Jo498]

Sure, it can happen, it is not such a big deal; it seems a glitch or bug, though. And it was not immediately obvious to me what was wrong.

It was today during normal business hours at 10 or 11 in the morning. It took not more than about 15 minutes as I checked the offers, listened to a few samples and searched for reviews and deliberated which ones to get and what else to reach their free shipping of 20 EUR.
Very probably I simply was too late for the Kempff/Brahms that apparently sold out quickly (The Schumann, Chopin, Mozart are still listed).

Of course I had before the phenomenon of offers expiring very quickly. But then it had usually been at least several hours or even a day I waited for some reason and then certain items were gone. But then they were clearly listed either as out of stock or re-listed at the regular price. I cannot remember the phenomenon I described with the item either vanishing completely from the cart or going up in price in the cart but still being included on the offer page. If this was any common, I would not have made such a fuss about it.

[André]

Nothing in there that appeals to me, but I recommend the van Kempen Tchaikovsky twofer - if it's still available, of course  .

[Ken B]

I don't think these things are actually bugs per se. It is almost certainly a result of caching. The internet runs on caching. The savings in time and load from caching are what make the internet fast and responsive.  But figuring out when a cached bit of data is stale is very tricky. When you refresh your cart to buy that is the result of a fresh calculation not cache, but an offer page will almost certainly have been cached. So there can be lags, especially with an attractive short term offer generating purchases.

Does your local bakery ever have fliers or a chalk board with offers? Do you expect either to be instantly up to date?

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

From what Jo has described, it is a clear bug, and I appreciate the warning. The three people who responded previously apparently did not agree that there was a glitch, hence Jo's subsequent clarifications.

C'mon, this is JPC. I ordered from them once on a previous sale, order goes through, they only sent half the stuff. They silently canceled the stuff they decided was no longer on sale without even notifying me. If you want to actually get the stuff you order, you forget about JPC.

[Jo498]

I don't think these things are actually bugs per se. It is almost certainly a result of caching. The internet runs on caching. The savings in time and load from caching are what make the internet fast and responsive.  But figuring out when a cached bit of data is stale is very tricky. When you refresh your cart to buy that is the result of a fresh calculation not cache, but an offer page will almost certainly have been cached. So there can be lags, especially with an attractive short term offer generating purchases.

Does your local bakery ever have fliers or a chalk board with offers? Do you expect either to be instantly up to date?

Your explanation sounds plausible. The caches would not change despite some refreshings.

But the bakery is a very poor comparison. In the bakery I can obviously either see what's in their shelves or ask the salesperson if there is some of X left. And otherwise I would find an offer that changed within a day fairly strange, unless clearly advertised. Unless I enter as the first costumer at 7 in the morning and a board might still have yesterdays's special on it I would expect advertised offers to be correct and would be mildly annoyed if they weren't.

Precisely because such things are not possible in online dealings, it is confusing if lists of offers or shopping carts show strange behavior.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

I don't think these things are actually bugs per se. It is almost certainly a result of caching. The internet runs on caching. The savings in time and load from caching are what make the internet fast and responsive.  But figuring out when a cached bit of data is stale is very tricky. When you refresh your cart to buy that is the result of a fresh calculation not cache, but an offer page will almost certainly have been cached. So there can be lags, especially with an attractive short term offer generating purchases.

Do you mean caching in the browser? I guess it is possible, but my experience is that my browser always knows to explicitly reload a listing from a commerce site (probably there is some flag buried in the protocol saying 'this is fresh'). If this is not working for the JPC site I'd definitely call that a bug.