ASA Adjudication on Kingsway Beds Ltd

Ad

A regional press ad, for Ideal Homes Furniture Store, was headlined "Bank Holiday Spring Clean out! Starts Friday 4th May at 10am". Underneath was a photograph of a three-seater sofa; text stated "7 ONLY PER STORE WAS £699 CLEARANCE PRICE £99 Mexico genuine black leather 3 seater sofa ... Jake 2 seater sofa in deep burgundy leather WAS £999 CLEARANCE PRICE £99 …". The ad featured other items of furniture available in the sale. Small print at the bottom of the ad stated "... PICTURES FOR ILLUSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY ALL OFFERS ARE CORRECT AND AVAILABLE AT TIME OF GOING TO PRESS ...".

Issue

The complainant, who had been the first person to visit the store when the sale started, challenged the availability of the advertised furniture. She said only one black leather three-seater sofa, of a different design from that advertised, was available for £99 and only two burgundy leather two-seater sofas were available for £99.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Ideal Homes Furniture Store (Ideal) asserted that the offer in the ad was correct at the time of going to press. They said they had placed the ad in a free paper for distribution on Thursday 3 May 2007. However, they believed the paper was distributed early that week and some households had received it as early as 1 and 2 May. They asserted that, as a result of that, their Leicester store was inundated with customers wanting to take advantage of the offers on Wednesday 2 May. They said some inexperienced sales staff had allowed customers to purchase three Mexico sofas and one Jake sofa on that date without checking whether that was acceptable. They explained that, when senior members of staff became aware of the situation, staff were told not to sell any further sofas until Friday 4 May. Ideal said customers had still attempted to purchase the sofas before Friday 4 May but had been told they could not do so. However, Ideal had offered those customers the chance to telephone the store on 4 May to reserve a sofa; they believed at least one customer had done that.

Ideal understood that at least six customers had entered the store at the same time when the sale began on 4 May and that two of those customers immediately purchased all the sofas on offer. They said, because the advertised sofas had all been sold, they had offered customers other comparable sofas at the same price on 4 May.

Ideal said they had spoken to the staff involved in mistakenly selling the sofas early to ensure that it did not happen again.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA made enquiries about the free paper and understood that it was always delivered between Tuesday and Thursday every week and was always published with Thursdays date; the paper believed advertisers were aware of those facts.

We noted the ad had been seen on 1 and 2 May 2007 and customers had visited the store to purchase the advertised sofas before 4 May, the date the sale was advertised to begin. We also noted some of the advertised sofas had been sold before the date the sale started; we welcomed Ideals assurance that they would ensure that did not happen again. However, we noted the ad stated "7 ONLY PER STORE" for the Mexico sofa but fewer than seven Mexico sofas were available at the time the sale started. We also noted the ad did not make clear that stocks of the Jake sofa were limited. We concluded that the promotion had not been administered correctly and breached the Code.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 16.1 (Availability of products), 27.4 (Sales promotion rules - Introduction) and 30.1 (Sales promotion rules - Availability).

Action

We told Ideal to take greater care with future similar promotions in order to avoid disappointing customers.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)