So I called in a combined Christmas/birthday/anniversary (they're all within 2 weeks of each other) gift from my partner, and ordered a Vestax VCI-300 on her behalf a few weeks ago from a local online retailer. I emailed them yesterday to find out if the order would arrive in time for Christmas. I just then got a call from the retailer to tell me that they had been waiting on a shipment from Vestax for over 2 months, then today apparently Vestax informed them that their shipment was ready, but instead of retailing for $1150 (Aussie dollars) each as originally quoted, they would now be selling for $1899...
"Are you fucking kidding me?!", I asked.
"I know, it's ridiculous", he responded, "They are clearly not worth that much. So now we have nearly two hundred people that we have to call up and give the bad news. The best we can do to honour your order is give it to you at our cost price of $1550, but I still don't think it is even worth that. In all likelihood we will be cancelling ALL orders from Vestax as they are being very unhelpful in this situation. The best you can hope for is that in a few months after Vestax has sold none of their stock at inflated prices, they will lower the price, at which point we may consider placing orders with them again. So would you like to cancel your order?"
"Yes. Yes I would."
A quick check of other retailers and eBay reveals either "out of stock" or prices inflated by hundreds of dollars over what I would be prepared to pay for it.
Seriously pissed off... words cannot describe the disappointment. There were several parties at which I was going to play during these holidays, which I will now likely have to cancel.
What I'm wondering is, who is to blame here? Are Vestax to blame for vastly increasing their prices despite the retailer's wholesale order being placed months ago? Or is it merely a balanced and justified response to the devaluing of our currency? On the other hand, is the local retailer to blame for allowing me to place an order when they were actually out of stock?
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