Thread: Staples.com funny story on Cyber Monday.

You want to read some really funny comments currently... go to Staples.com facebook and read a bunch of comments people put.... to sum up what happened that lead to this massive burst of anger from people across the country and elsewhere... here's what happened.



First, staples marketing team announced on facebook that they would begin their Cyber Monday deal that will begin on Sunday at 6:00 AM... Cyber monday is just like black friday except it's for internet deals only and it would be on mondays...

so bascially, there was this really cheap WD 2TB hard drive on sale... the price is $70... but people could stack a $25 off $75 orders when they add like another item for like 45.... this would bring the WD 2TB hard drive to like $55 shipped! Everyone wanted that... even if they don't even download anything.

But what happened was the deal went live and people could start ordering at around midnight... and one website known to completely crash unprepared websites of massive amount of visitors (i've witnessed this many times before)... they would completely "sold out" of every good deals online... because the deal was so good that it produces a chain effect where, even though you don't need it or you didn't think of buying before, but you see so many peopl buy it, you buy it because of scarcity feeling or feeling like you gain from this deal... (or it's popular and people want to be among that group).

Well, those people that got lucky and stayed up late that ordered suddenly reallized that there were major flaws going on... such as staples not giving them email confirming their orders, orders not showing up in history..... things just didn't looked right and they had a sense that everyone will get their orders canceled... which would cause an upset stomach for everyone.... nothing sucks more than ordering a really good deal then go bust.

So, it turns out that some people were getting their orders processed and had some sort of comfort knowing that they had a really good chance of getting the hard drives... that there was nothing wrong with their orders. But there is still uncertainty as staples might send them an email saying they ran out of stock, ect... The rest of the people, well, no luck, everything went caaaaaaput, cancellation letters, orders didn't go through... the whole bit.

A quote by one of the members of slickdeals.net describes how everyone felt:

i dont know if its better to wake up and miss a deal or to be on time and have the deal taken away.

So at 6:00 AM, all those people that had set their alarm clock to wake up just in time for the deal... all of a sudden find that the 2TB hard drive and a few other "hot" items were out of stock already.... people were pissed to say the least. you will find messages like:

"What happen to this going live at 6:00 AM. Total BS!"

CRAP! Set my alarm for 4am MT, and it's already gone!!!???

I just want to say some f*** word to staples.
Staples, you suck

Are you kidding me! I set my alarm to wake up for this to find out the deal went live already & now OOS! WTF Staples!

cr.ap... got up early to get this one...and its already oos.. staples has sc.rewed me twice this bf...

Quote from rds2 :
Sorry for the delay in replying. No, everything showed up as it should .. didn't see any problems, so far...
Very upset. Set my time to be up at the time of the start of the sale and it is already out of stock. How infuriating!!!!!!!!

WTF Staples
Wtf staples! Your rep said the sale would start at 6am est on facebook.com! You lied and i lost my precious sleep!

One of the members of slickdeals wanted try to figure out why orders were getting canceled and stuff and one of the reply was:

1) 3:04 am EST saw deal live, read a few posts, me being cheap bastard wanted to save another 25

2) 3:05 am EST spent $ 2.50 from "Hot coupon for U cheap bastard.com" to save $25 of $75

3) 3:06 - 3:36 am EST spent 30 minutes debating between paperclips, flashdrive, binder clips, tampons, etc

4) 3:37 am EST decided on fillers, added items to cart, 2TB External OOS

5) 3:39 am - 5:57 am barely can stay up, pissed off, hoping for 6 am stock replenishment, wondering why I am such a loser, cheapskate, alcoholic, drug abuser, spouse abuser, etc.

Now, you gotta understand that slickdeals.net was a forum of posted deals so people didn't let their anger blow up... it is in staples facebook that people expressed their full anger....

go to staples facebook and read some of the comments left by people

Staples | Facebook

or try the following pages:

Now that you've... | Facebook

Dear fans - we are... | Facebook

Staples wishes you... | Facebook

staples asked:
Staples wishes you all a Happy Thanksgiving! We're thankful for all our customers and associates worldwide. Tell us, what are you thankful for today?

one guy replied:

I am thankful for staples giving me the wrong time for cyber monday sales, so I can actually wake up nice and early on a sunday morning, trying to figure out how an item is already out of stock even before it's supposed to be on sale... wow, can you imagine how grateful I am?!

So many people are piSSSSed over this fiasco...not a good move, Staples! And it's not just people here on facebook. As you guys know(although i doubt Staples is very aware of this), information passes very fast on the internet, and with al...

So yea.... i mean, more comments by angry customers:

Staples asked:
Now that you've shopped and (hopefully) napped, we want to hear about the best bargains you found today!


People said:

Staples, admit it! you screwed up big and ticked a lot of people off. So make it right and offer a similar deal that you can support the demand of your customers. Now I remember why I don't shop Staples, you sucker punch your customers.

You "Staples" as a company is not showing any remorse for the mess you guys made, and also not showing any effort for "Damage Control". We are in the information age. This bad behavior of yours is going to spread faster than wild fire on the Internet, and you are going to lose a lot of loyal customers, including me and all my group of professional friend & colleagues. Do the math, crunch the numbers, and have a better plan before just saying "Sorry!!!"

This whole thing is frustrating. Got my email at 4:07 this am and they were already sold out of the WD 2tb. Won't be shopping at Staples anymore... :(

What a lousy way to run a sale -- pump it for days, and then when people show up to shop based on all the hype, oops, there's nothing left. I would like to have had one of those WD hard drives.

So staples apolagized for the incident:
Dear fans - we are sorry. Deal popularity on some of our cyber Monday promotions exceeded our expectations and we sold out quickly. Please accept our apologies as we try to make it up to you with more deals throughout the season.

People replied:

STAPLES - YOU SUCK! And you STILL refuse to own up to your mistake by apologizing for the WRONG thing!!!! NO ONE would be upset about an item selling out quickly - it's expected, especially during the Holidays....WHAT PEOPLE ARE MAD ABOTU IS YOU SAYING THEY WOULD GO ON SALE AT 6AM AND THEN SELLING EVERYTHING AT 3AM!!! Your company is a FRAUD and you are a LIAR and your apology is AS MISLEADING as your original "6AM" promise!

So you're sorry that you "sold out quickly", but not sorry that they were sold earlier than you announced they would be? Nice.

I second everything that has already been said. What a joke.
Things sell out, it happens. What SHOULD NEVER happen, is announcing a sale time, and not sticking TO IT!

no people.... they announced the sale would start at 6am sunday....but they actually started around 2:30am sunday....so when people started waking up around 5:30am to get ready for it....everything already was out of stock....and they are giving us the run around and hoping clueless people wont know what they posted about to defend them

Dear Staples, You still don't get it, do you? The problem is not that the deals sold out quickly. The problem is that they went live hours before the time that you told us and that we relied on and messed up our sleep schedules for.

So, basically, staples has to deal with two problems... the morning crowd that though the deal was going to live at 6:00 AM... and the other crowd which happened to be on at 12:00 AM to catch the deal going live extra early... those people over loaded the system and "sold out" and basically screwed up many orders by using an extra coupon of $25 off which was bought on ebay, ejunkie, or other coupon sites that generate "codes" or they could be real, i don't know. Those people got their orders canceled. so both groups lost on the deal... so they felt betrayed by staples.

Well, right now, as i speak, on monday at around 2 PM... people are still trying to order that hard drive on staples.com which it goes in stock every 15 or 30 minutes... keep on trying and the thread keep on building... you can read the entire over 1000 post thread here: Staples Cyber Monday (WD Elements 2TB External Drive For $50 AC) - SlickDeals.net Forums

go read staples facebook for a quick laugh too... lol this was funnie:
Staples | Facebook

post some funny quotes too ...!

over-react much?

Still, kinda stupid for staples not apologizing.

Originally Posted by Kaptain_K

over-react much?

Still, kinda stupid for staples not apologizing.

not an over-reaction at all, this is just wrong what staples did... first they made the sale go live toooooo early... people set their alarm clock to be on time... but they got screwed (all sold out).... then the people that actually ordered early got their orders canceled because out of stock... but if you got lucky and came and ordered about 1 hour after the early "live" you might get a chance of the order going through... such bs.... too bad, the hard drive was the best deal of the year! $55 for a 2 TB hard drive! its a good hard drive too.

huh what's to come of this lol

Originally Posted by Pdoggy

huh what's to come of this lol

just a big mess really... staples really did some funny stuff here... they screwed up cyber monday big time... alot of people upset...

meaning alot of people didn't get any deal and lost time and energy.

they did however promised to send out $30 gift cards to all that got their orders canceled and they promised those that didn't even get a chance to order that they will provide more great deals throughout the year... so... lets hope they keep their word.. who knows, they might screw people over again...

I got denied trying to use a 35$ off coupon that wasn't valid on a hard drive. They canceled my order on Cyber Monday about two hours after I placed it.

I find reading these people's angry responses incredibly amusing! Especially the ones in response to the "What are you thankful for" haha

What I don't get is 1) These people act like staples messed up their sleep schedules for the entire year. OMG getting up at 6AM on Sunday - the travesty! lol and 2) Geez these people are intense about this hard drive. lol

Don't mean to sound insensitive to these people's plight. I'm not denying Staples obviously screwed up and the rep that posted that probably got fired so fast he didn't know what hit him. But hey, mistakes happen and it's not like they drove for miles, camped and waited outside in the freezing cold @ 3:00AM for the doors to open to buy this. They just set a slightly earlier alarm. They obviously need some help coping with this... lol

Originally Posted by Ela

I find reading these people's angry responses incredibly amusing! Especially the ones in response to the "What are you thankful for" haha

What I don't get is 1) These people act like staples messed up their sleep schedules for the entire year. OMG getting up at 6AM on Sunday - the travesty! lol and 2) Geez these people are intense about this hard drive. lol

Don't mean to sound insensitive to these people's plight. I'm not denying Staples obviously screwed up and the rep that posted that probably got fired so fast he didn't know what hit him. But hey, mistakes happen and it's not like they drove for miles, camped and waited outside in the freezing cold @ 3:00AM for the doors to open to buy this. They just set a slightly earlier alarm. They obviously need some help coping with this... lol

mistake or not, you must say, staples really fucked up with this sale... on both levels.... like haccadams said, his order was canceled even though he placed one... and the rest of the people were just pissed that they woke up to be on time for the sale... to see "out of stock". imagine this okay, now, the alarm just rang and you woke up, you refresh the page and you see 'sold out'... ur like uhhh wtf, it's not 6 am yet why is it sold out... wtf. then you hop in the slickdeals forum to find out that they started way earlier... now imagine what those people are thinking... "fuck you staples!" "WHY, you said 6 am!" "WTF STAPLES"... you might feel betrayed and angry for a second.

so like, nobody got anything really... just like a small number of people actually it, and the majority are left out on the cold.

Yea, i could see people getting a little upset about missing it but a lot of people took it much farther and filed complaints and stuff... which is pretty wild over missing out on a deal.

Well, im glad you find it amusing like myself... and it really is... what's more entertaining than seeing angry and riled up customers against a store... lol!!!!

if you haven't noticed, the angrier customers are towards the beginnings so the older comments... that's where all of them are located... towards the newer comments, it became calmer as people began to discuss more insted of ranting and yelling.. lol

hahaha... so funny, so many pissed off people.

And we see the flaw in almost every online marketing campaign. There are few companies who can deal with a *deal* like this on the web. I've only seen 1 company handle a MASS herding well and that company no longer exists.