ASA Adjudication on Candid Collections Ltd

Ad

An e-mail from Simply Be had the heading "SAVE 20% before Midnight Monday". Text underneath stated "Take a look at our latest fashion collections and if you order we'll give you a fantastic 20% discount". The e-mail featured 12 items next to the text "NEW IN".

Issue

A recipient challenged the availability of the advertised products, because several of the featured items she attempted to order were out of stock.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Simply Be said they sold over 20,000 different products, which was roughly 200,000 unique lines when colours and sizes were taken into consideration. They said the e-mail was one of 27 e-mail campaigns sent to Simply Be customers between January and June. They said they always kept watch on the stock levels for all their promotions and provided the ASA with a stock control document, which they believed, based on normal response to such offers, showed there was a generally high level of stock to back the promotion. Simply Be said, because they offered so many varied sizes and colours for one particular product, it was possible that one size might sell out quicker than another, and they also held smaller stock for less popular sizes. However, they acknowledged that, in retrospect, the stock levels for three of the items listed in the e-mail were not as high as they would have wished. They explained that one of the items the complainant tried to buy was in stock but they were unable to explain why she was told otherwise.

Simply Be believed that they had robust procedures in place for stock control and predicting demand, but said, in the context of their campaigns and breadth of offers, there would be occasional issues with out of stock items.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted Simply Be believed they held sufficient stock for the promotion, based on normal responses to such offers. However, we noted the e-mail stated "Take a look at our latest fashion collections" and "NEW IN" and we considered that consumers would expect that, because the 12 items were recent additions to the collection, there would be sufficient stock in all sizes and colours to fulfil orders, which we understood was not the case. We also considered that the fact that the advertised products were "NEW IN" was likely to increase demand for them. We noted Simply Be acknowledged that stock levels for some of the items were lower than they would normally hold, but we also noted we had not seen evidence that demonstrated on what basis Simply Be had anticipated demand for those items. We therefore considered that, on this occasion, Simply Be had not made a reasonable estimate of the likely response to the promotion, or taken steps to ensure that they held sufficient stock to satisfy anticipated demand. We concluded therefore that the e-mail was misleading.

The e-mail breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness), 16.4 (Availability of products), 27.4 (Sales promotion rules) and 30.1 (Availability).

Action

The e-mail must not appear again in its current form unless Simply Be held sufficient stock to satisfy anticipated demand.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)