At Promoboxx we love local retailers, so when Harvard Business School professor and lawyer Ben Edelman tries to prove a legal point with a small independent Chinese restaurant because of a $4 overcharge, we have to step in.
Price errors at the point of sale are common at retail. Its primarily the result of busy overworked people not having the time to keep things updated. In college, when I worked at Best Buy, the majority of annual loss wasn’t due to theft, but to pricing mistakes that lead to undercharging customers …and this was Best Buy, backed by vast technology and diligent management all aligned to keep things correct. Now imagine an overworked small business owner, and you have what happened here.
A lawyer friend of mine equated the mistake to AT&T systematically overcharging customers on their mobile phone bills. This might make some legal sense, but it fails the human test. Just look at the polite email responses from Ran Duan (the son of the owners), this is exactly what happened. He quickly responded, apologized for error, attempted to explain the error, and then offered a refund – but Professor Edelman continued to attack the restaurant.
We should be supporting local retailers by helping them with matters such as this, not sue them. When asked about the quality of his food order, Edelman conceded that “it was delicious.” So for lunch today, we’ll be ordering some amazing Chinese food from Sichuan Garden and offering any local support they need, stop by if you’d like some. Even you, Mr. Edelman.
#BelieveInRetailers,
– BC
