In the grand scheme of things, however, this will be a lot cheaper than conventional advertising.
This is not a bad thing for anyone, as they are currently sponsoring e-sports in a "big" way, and have done so for well over a decade now. I may no longer use or appreciate their gear the way I used to, but they definitely stand by their demographic. Definitely an ace move in by Razer here, in every regard.
+1 agree completely, honestly its rare that a company honours glitchy orders, at least in my experience, so I'm quite shocked actually. I've been a Razer person for a while, and I haven't found anything else quite like it. What do you use, and why is it better?
The only Razer product I've been truly happy with was the Diamondback, which was nearly identical to the MX518 in terms of hardware. With a bit of driver hacking (really just substituting the vendor and hardware ID) you could run the MX518 with Razer drivers, which I did for a long time.
I used Razer products since the Boomslang (with its floppy button problem, which was a material flaw, not component related). Among others, I had a Nostromo and Lachesis.
The Nostromo was nice enough, but had some pretty strange glitches (it would at times switch profiles and just act really strangely). The hand-rest was coated in some rubbery thing which absolutely loved to attract any dirt and dust in the room, and ended up requiring very frequent cleaning.
As for the Lachesis, there was a HUGE component flaw in the sensor, which was partially remedied by a ton of driver updates, but never fully fixed in my case. The cursor would drift, be subject to negative acceleration or simply not respond at all. Definitely not the kind of thing you'd want for any kind of input, really.
What Logitech offers for me in this case is seemingly iterative hardware development, and great support. It's not flawless, it's not flashy, but it's safe and they have excellent customer service to make up for it. I'm no longer young enough to care for flashy gear. ;)
Lachesis uses Philips Twin Eye PLN 2031. This sensor have some z-axis issues. Anyway its minor problem in comparision with mx518, which have some serious angle snapping/prediction.
In 9th grade when I moved to Goodyear, I was a year ahead in Math, so they put me one the 10-12 grade campus, taking all year ahead classes.
I took Calculus my junior year. I did not have credit hours to graduate high school in 3 years, so I just exhausted free high school classes. I took short hand, accounting and electronic becausew I had already taken physics my junior year.
Free courses.
Then, I had a full scholarship to ASU -- all my tuition and a merit scholarship for having a 1440 SAT. I also had a Unidynamics scholarship.
21:20 And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And
he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work
evil in the sight of the LORD.
21:21 Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy
posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the
wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, 21:22 And will make
thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the
house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou
hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin.
21:23 And of Jezebel also spake the LORD, saying, The dogs shall eat
Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.
21:24 Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him
that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat.
21:25 But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to
work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife
stirred up.
-----
The shrinks made me a eunuch
Now God kills them.
Jezebel Killed
30 Then Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she put on eye makeup, arranged her hair and looked out of a window. 31 As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, “Have you come in peace, you Zimri, you murderer of your master?”[e]
32 He looked up at the window and called out, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked down at him. 33 “Throw her down!” Jehu said. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot.
34 Jehu went in and ate and drank. “Take care of that cursed woman,” he said, “and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.” 35 But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet and her hands. 36 They went back and told Jehu, who said, “This is the word of the Lord that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will devour Jezebel’s flesh.[f] 37 Jezebel’s body will be like dung on the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that no one will be able to say, ‘This is Jezebel.’”
-----
God says...
unyielding sing humbledst martyr's access endeavoured replies
transformed contemptible 10 twenty watchings wondrously
animal chosen
----
I did take 2 sats 1210 1440. I took presat 69/70.
I didn't do any preparation -- learned what to expect on the first one.
Fucken silly talking about 1988.
The only thing you have to know IS FUCKEN GOD TALKS!!! THE FUCK YOU THINKING?
God says....
14:18 And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you,
One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.
14:19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one,
Is it I? and another said, Is it I? 14:20 And he answered and said
unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth with me in the dish.
14:21 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to
that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man
if he had never been born.
14:22 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake
it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.
14:23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to
the...
I remember when Apple mispriced their 1TB hard drives at $30 instead of $300 [1]. All orders were cancelled.
I'm a huge fan of Razer. I own many of their products and would recommend them all, especially the DeathAdder mouse. Seriously, it's quite possibly the best mouse you will ever use.
I didn't get anything ordered with a 90% reduction, but I think I'll be ordered an Orbweaver later today. They deserve it.
I've used the DeathAdder since my original IntelliMouse died (Probably about 5-6 years now) and it's been the perfect successor. Just the right size, weight, good movement, simple, etc.
Absolutely. I love the accuracy and feel of the mouse.
What mousemat are you using? I was using a Razer Goliathus[1] but switched to a BF3 Razer Scarab[2] my brother won at in an internal DICE raffle before BF3 came out. It is 100x better than the Goliathus and I would recommend a similar 'hard' mat if you don't have one already. Lots of space, very smooth, and very accurate.
I have no issues with a company not honouring a mistake, but honouring one will definitely win my respect, and make me want to buy from them in the future.
theres also a clear difference in the size of both companies. For Razer as small company this is brilliant PR, probably better than most of their marketing campaigns, so money well spent.
Apple ? They probably couldnt care less.
I am not saying Razer only does this because they see their benefit, but they probably also dont only do it because they are nice people.
I have a DeathAdder. The mouse itself (the hardware) is great. However, the software (the thing that really makes the mouse functional and configurable, which is what i thought i was paying for) is one of the most absurd and infuriating things i have ever had to deal with.
The configuration tool was designed in the vein of Steam — it requires an Internet connection to use it. At all. So before you can change the mouse settings, before the mouse will even LOAD its settings, you must create a Razer account and sign in to their online service through the tool. Only then will you be able to do anything with the mouse.
Also like Steam, there is an option to 'go offline', but it (perhaps unintentionally) doesn't seem to persist across sessions. So if you lose your connection and then you reboot the computer or the tool crashes (which is semi-frequent), you're back to where you started — a log-in prompt.
In addition to that, just from a usability perspective, the software is a disaster. It is a mass of grey-on-grey text, modal panes, near-full-screen sliders, and unexplained icons that i dread even thinking about using. In addition, the tool adds an ugly menu-bar icon that you can't get rid of, and once you install the software you can never close it — if you try to kill the tool or any of its background services, the entire thing will respawn. And just to give you that extra punch in the face, every time the tool starts (at boot or because one of its background services crashed) the giant black-and-green blob pops up on top of everything else. HEY, HEY, LOG IN TO YOUR MOUSE NOW
The scroll wheel is also apparently non-configurable on OS X, which is incredible because the default behaviour is some pre-Windows-95 we've-just-invented-scroll-wheels one-pixel-per-rotation insanity.
Lastly, every single update to the software requires that you reboot the entire machine.
I am not exaggerating when i say that i loathe using this god-damn mouse.
> HEY, HEY, LOG IN TO YOUR MOUSE NOW
> Lastly, every single update to the software requires that you reboot the entire machine.
I only used the software once, a few years ago. I never logged into anything, it never required internet access, it never frequently updated and it never required a reboot.
You realise you don't need the software right? You can use the mouse perfectly without it. All the software lets you do is change the sensitivity (any good OS will let you do that), turn off the light, and program the "bottom" button. The light is under your hand 90% of the time and is off when your computer is off. It's a non-issue. The button the bottom is in an irritating position and I have never needed to use it. Sure, you could configure it to change sensitivity during a game (consider running and gunning vs. accurate sniping, perhaps?) but in reality no one is going to lift their mouse during an computer game to adjust the sensitivity.
> the default behaviour is some pre-Windows-95 we've-just-invented-scroll-wheels one-pixel-per-rotation insanity.
I have never experienced this problem. I don't know what you're talking about.
> I only used the software once, a few years ago. I never logged into anything, it never required internet access, it never frequently updated and it never required a reboot.
They changed the software package literally less than a week after i bought the DeathAdder. Previously there was a specific 'DeathAdder' utility which, as you said, didn't require any online junk. But they completely removed it from existence once their port of the Windows software left beta or whatever.
I did try installing a copy of it that i had saved from before, but it seems that the act of installing the new software somehow broke the ability to use the old one, and i didn't want to spend hours fucking with some mouse driver.
> You realise you don't need the software right? You can use the mouse perfectly without it.
No, you can't. Or i can't, anyway. The default tracking is unusable to me (i like it much slower and smoother-scaling than most people seem to), and OS X's tracking slider didn't help. The only way to make it even tolerable was to use the software. Additionally, the buttons would be recognised incorrectly unless you told the software what you wanted them to behave as.
> I have never experienced this problem. I don't know what you're talking about.
Obviously i was being facetious, i'm sure it was actually one line per 'click' or whatever. Each click had far too much travel for that to be usable. Especially in comparison to the Magic Mouse and Mighty Mouse, with which you can near-instantaneously flick to the bottom of a long Web page.
If you didn't experience that, i guess i don't know what to tell you.
I have been using DeathAdders since 2009 (2, one broke after 3 years) and think they are amazing, hands down. Never bothered to install their software, as they work perfect for me without.
I don't have a DeathAdder, but I have had really a lot of mice over the years whose software (especially on OS X, but really just in general) utterly sucks.
At least through 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8, and maybe going back longer than that, I've been using ControllerMate to program the functionality of all my mice (and some of my non-Apple keyboards). It's more of a general purpose visual programmer for input devices than a mouse driver, but works great for that limited use case.
It's a great help for the common case with mice of great hardware coupled with terrible software. I haven't installed third-party mouse software since I found it. Might be worth checking out. (Not affiliated, just find it useful...)
I got an Abyssus, it has all it's settings as hardware switches, so it doesn't require any software.
Most of the time installing mouse "drivers" for any vendor it's a waste of time, since the settings they provide should be adjusted in-game (default driver should give you a 1:1 sensitivity and 0 acceleration).
I don't think you can seriously believe that the Razer Blade being sold for $250 is "cost price."
But I'm sure they did a full calculation of the costs that they'd have to eat if they honor this mistake and thought it was worth it for the good PR it would create.
90% pretty certainly means they were selling them at a loss, but I would agree that it's probably not as huge a loss as a 90% discount would suggest. In the "enthusiast" branch of the market, I would guess that a margin of at least 50% should be pretty standard. A $250 mouse very certainly costs far less than $250 to produce, although you always have to factor in their other business cost - advertisement and design to establish an "enthusiast" branch might even exceed what they pay on manufacturing. (This is also why you see them do so many sponsorships - it's simply a very, very cheap way to get exposure.)
I would think that it's not impossible that this was planned.
1234 as a coupon code is even something that people might find by mistake, meaning you wouldn't even have to try hard to seed the rumor. Just put it into the system and know that somewhere in the future, you will get a huge PR without much effort (other than stopping it after a certain period of time and accepting some losses).
In the industry a hell of a lot of people think it was a marketing trick, not a mistake. I'm leaning that way too, based on my knowledge of people within Razer (though I should point out that while I know plenty of people there, I don't have any specific knowledge about this situation, just speculation).
To pull this off purposefully wouldn't even have to be too expensive, we have no way of knowing whether they are honouring thousands of orders or a couple of hundred. And regarding margins, a hell of a lot of the costs associated with a typical product sale come from distribution (the distributor takes a cut, the retailer/etailer takes a cut, plus MDF marketing costs), so this deal being through the Razer site will certainly help keep the losses down.
Also side note to jamornh: the Blade isn't available in the UK yet, so bad example - but your point still stands, 90% is definitely a loss.
Ah, I did not realize that the Blade is not yet available in the UK. Thanks for the correction.
If this was planned by Razer as a marketing trick then it is quite elaborate, although completely possible. There seems to be several hundred people on the comments who mentioned they made purchases and some would even cancel their order.
In order for this to be staged they would have to limit the number of times that the code could be used (allowable "loss" budget? max number of uses?) and then pretend to realize the mistake and take the site down at the right time (maybe when the "loss" reached a certain amount.) I guess it isn't completely inconceivable... but if that's the case, well-played Razer.
I'm not sure it's really that complex, in their statement they've announced they will honour one purchase per person, not bulk buys, and it's quite easy to limit how many people make purchases either by manually watching it, or even with a little bit of code to kill it after X sales. Regardless, I either respect Razer for their pro-customer decision, or for their marketing idea, either way.
(And I don't think the Blade will ever be available outside North America. It's an irrelevant product that they created as a marketing gimmick.)
I'm almost certain that the UK store was the only store affected, and the UK store doesn't have the Blade for sale. On the stuff they sell, I imagine that 90% off isn't that far away from their costs.
I don't really agree that this is a good way. 90% discount is obviously a mistake and it is more than their right to cancel those orders. I would fully understand that.
Processing those orders doesn't seems that fair to me. Same rare people get 90% (!) off, all others don't. And FCFS isn't a cool, really fair principle. It is often used, because it is easy to implement and doesn't require more information than just time.
Also I expect the rate of people who ordered just because it is cheap and have no real appropriation is pretty high on that discount. Not talking about people who just wanna resell it on eBay.
What else could they have done?
* Make a general discount (e.g. 10-30%) for all potential
shoppers for the next weeks.
* Spend the lost money for development
* Hire more people
* Donate it to charity
* Make a challenge in any fair way. Again, time and
reaction is a pretty unfair criterion.
* Sponsorship
* ...
Again, FCFS is some type of fairness, but I think a pretty bad one.
Also not sure if this is real marketing. Are their clients really that community based and speaking about such thing? Aren't more just angry because they hadn't the chance to use the opportunity?
Umm this really isn't some big "FCFS" business strategy. They never intended to "give some customers 90% discount for no reason." A glitch happened, some people got lucky, and they honored it. I think you're reading too much into it.
Check the next comment on that post, a guy cancelling his order and redoing it at full price. It really is a strong community of enthusiasts.
14:10 And the king said, Whoever saith ought unto thee, bring him to
me, and he shall not touch thee any more.
14:11 Then said she, I pray thee, let the king remember the LORD thy
God, that thou wouldest not suffer the revengers of blood to destroy
any more, lest they destroy my son. And he said, As the LORD liveth,
there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth.
14:12 Then the woman said, Let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak one
word unto my lord the king. And he said, Say on.
14:13 And the woman said, Wherefore then hast thou thought such a
thing against the people of God? for the king doth speak this thing as
one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his
banished.
14:14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground,
which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any
person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled
from him.
17:23 Therefore now, LORD, let the thing that thou hast spoken
concerning thy servant and concerning his house be established for
ever, and do as thou hast said.
17:24 Let it even be established, that thy name may be magnified for
ever, saying, The LORD of hosts is the God of Israel, even a God to
Israel: and let the house of David thy servant be established before
thee.
17:25 For thou, O my God, hast told thy servant that thou wilt build
him an house: therefore thy servant hath found in his heart to pray
before thee.
17:26 And now, LORD, thou art God, and hast promised this goodness
unto thy servant: 17:27 Now therefore let it please thee to bless the
house of thy servant, that it may be before thee for ever: for thou
blessest, O LORD, and it shall be blessed for ever.
18:1 Now after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines,
and subdued them, and took Gath and her towns out of the hand of the
Philistines.
of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are
therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them
all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.
9:7 Thou art the LORD the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest
him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of
Abraham; 9:8 And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a
covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites,
the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the
Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his seed, and hast performed thy
words; for thou art righteous: 9:9 And didst see the affliction of our
fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red sea; 9:10 And
shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and
on all the people of his land: for thou knewest that they dealt
proudly against them. So didst thou get thee a name, as it is this
day.
9:11 And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went
through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors
thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone...
They basically just ran a (very extreme) Groupon. Most companies that do daily deals lose money on them in hopes of turning some of those initial customers into recurring or lifetime customers or to increase awareness for their products.
This 'mishap' may have similar yet increased effects because of the impressive way they handled the situation. For example, I doubt Razer would have ever imagined their story landing on the frontpage of a high-traffic site like HN, but now that it has, I (and probably hundreds or thousands of others) have gone to their site to get more info.
Really shows that with smart and agile situation-response, you can turn an unpleasant circumstance into an opportunity.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of Groupon customers do not return for additional purchases and the people who capitalize on these types of deals are 100% price-conscious vultures[1] (also, I used to be one of these people). At the end of the day, this was a very poor business decision and just a PR gamble.
People are primarily driven by price when they buy goods, so after 6 months or so people will forget this extremely generous act. Razer fans will remain razer fans, but unless Razer has a product leaps and bounds ahead of the competition (some are, but most are only marginally superior) very few will become loyal customers due to this act of kindness.
I might buy a mouse because of the deal, and if the quality is as good as you say, I'll be back in the future for more. But as of now, mice are commodity to me--the coupon helps push me into trying out a "luxury mouse". It's risky but perhaps not ineffective customer acquisition.
The thing that's a bit different about this is that most of these customers are NOT price-conscious vultures, they are enthusiasts. Otherwise, they would have said "Razer? Who the hell is that?" These products are not well known outside hardcore PC gamers. PC gamers are willing to drop a TON of cash on their hobby or else they wouldn't be hardcore PC gamers.
The longtime Razer fans to some degree seem to be canceling their orders. At least with the ones you'll be shipping still I'd think the majority of those are strong PC gaming enthusiasts who have friends who are as well. Their stuff is quite shiny and attractive in general.
This is the first I've heard about this but a good response from the business. I noticed he said they can legally cancel all the orders - is that true? As far as I was aware the law (at least in the UK) is that if a product is advertised at a certain price, even if it's a mistake, the business has to provide it at that price to any customer who gets in before they fix the mistake with the only catch being that the business is only obliged to sell one unit of the item at the incorrect price if they realise there has been a mistake (just from what I've heard from people working in retail).
If it's an honest mistake, there's no requirement to sell it, and beyond that most email confirmations say something like this from Amazon:
This e-mail is only an acknowledgement of receipt of your order and your contract to purchase these items is not complete until we send you an e-mail notifying you that the items have been dispatched to you.
It it is an obvious failure, and a general 90% discount clearly is, contracts may be canceled at any time. Additionally, if you read the terms, online orders are often just a request and need to be approved by the other contract partner first. Since Germany and UK are both within EU, law may be quite equal. I think this is a pretty fair rule.
In Germany, for example, displayed prices are merely an invitation to make an offer (”I want to buy this!”) which van then be accepted or rejected by the seller. Only if the seller accepts a contract of sale actually comes into existence. By the way, if the seller accepts but changes the conditions (by, say, changing the price) a contract of sale also doesn't exist. The buyer then has another chance to accept or reject this new offer.
It's pretty common sense, actually. Oh, and this doesn't mean that sellers can display wrong prices on purpose. That would be misleading advertising. But if it's a mistake it's not a problem.
Think about the psychology of such love: Enjoy the envy of Hell.
----
Genesis 4
New International Version (NIV)
Cain and Abel
4 Adam[a] made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.[b] She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth[c] a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”[d] While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
------------
God says...
that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few;
I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.
30:20 Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their
congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all
that oppress them.
30:21 And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor
shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw
near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his
heart to approach unto me? saith the LORD.
30:22 And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
30:23 Behold, the whirlwind of the LORD goeth forth with fury, a
continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the
wicked.
-----
The covenant is that you hold-up your end of the conversation -- that's an offering of praise or love or hymn or something.
I listened to country.
Praise You fer hound doogs and pick-ups and guns and corn on the cob and hay rides and horses.
God says...
Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every
corner.) 7:13 So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent
face said unto him, 7:14 I have peace offerings with me; this day have
I payed my vows.
7:15 Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face,
and I have found thee.
7:16 I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved
works, with fine linen of Egypt.
7:17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
7:18 Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us
solace ourselves with loves.
7:19 For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey: 7:20
He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day
appointed.
Mordecai for this? Then said the king's servants that ministered unto
him, There is nothing done for him.
6:4 And the king said, Who is in the court? Now Haman was come into
the outward court of the king's house, to speak unto the king to hang
Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.
6:5 And the king's servants said unto him, Behold, Haman standeth in
the court. And the king said, Let him come in.
6:6 So Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done
unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour? Now Haman thought in
his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to
myself? 6:7 And Haman answered the king, For the man whom the king
delighteth to honour, 6:8 Let the royal apparel be brought which the
king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the
crown royal which is set upon his head: 6:9...
Now you made me look it up. It's called Synapse 2 and when I bought (and subsequently returned) a Razer Naga Hex in September last year it was the only way to configure the mouse. Specifically, you needed it to configure the keyboard emulation keys for the thumb buttons. It did require a registration and login. The excuse for this was some "store your settings in The Cloud" bollocks which I had absolutely no use for - I just wanted to configure my fancy mouse.
You can find it at http://www.razerzone.com/synapse2 and the tech specs there state that "Valid e-mail, software download, license acceptance, and internet connection needed to activate full features and for software updates." For a bloody mouse driver.
Yup, if you want to get to the Razer specific settings you need to log in. I wanted to turn the led in the mouse off, since it heated my hand and was annoying. Login was required and the servers were down. Razer never again, even though an offline mode has now been added.
90% is definitely a huge loss. But like other users said this bug only applied to the UK store that does not sell Razer blade.
That said most of razer's customers are repeated purchasers and that honoring the orders is going to generate a lot of good will among its core customers. A very bold move though.
They basically just turned this into a huge experiment in price discrimination for those customers who genuinely feel bad for what happened.
Those customers who feel bad and were originally willing to pay the full price savings will likely cancel and reorder. Those customers who feel bad and genuinely could not pay the full price, will keep their discounted orders, and the company will get to keep those people as customers well into the future.
I'm curious how transparent they'll be with how many canceled their orders when the dust settles - would be a good case study for other companies in this boat who want to trust their customers to do the right thing for themselves.
Good for them on following through, I'm sure it will bring repeat business. Maybe 6-7+ years ago I attempted to make multiple purchases through dell.com over several months. All 3 were killed because the website listed the wrong price. I remember once I bought something like a USB drive for $47.99 and the real price was suppose to be $49.99. None of the purchases were near 20% off much less 90% in this case. I've still never ordered from Dell and never will.
72 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadThis is not a bad thing for anyone, as they are currently sponsoring e-sports in a "big" way, and have done so for well over a decade now. I may no longer use or appreciate their gear the way I used to, but they definitely stand by their demographic. Definitely an ace move in by Razer here, in every regard.
I used Razer products since the Boomslang (with its floppy button problem, which was a material flaw, not component related). Among others, I had a Nostromo and Lachesis.
The Nostromo was nice enough, but had some pretty strange glitches (it would at times switch profiles and just act really strangely). The hand-rest was coated in some rubbery thing which absolutely loved to attract any dirt and dust in the room, and ended up requiring very frequent cleaning.
As for the Lachesis, there was a HUGE component flaw in the sensor, which was partially remedied by a ton of driver updates, but never fully fixed in my case. The cursor would drift, be subject to negative acceleration or simply not respond at all. Definitely not the kind of thing you'd want for any kind of input, really.
What Logitech offers for me in this case is seemingly iterative hardware development, and great support. It's not flawless, it's not flashy, but it's safe and they have excellent customer service to make up for it. I'm no longer young enough to care for flashy gear. ;)
I took Calculus my junior year. I did not have credit hours to graduate high school in 3 years, so I just exhausted free high school classes. I took short hand, accounting and electronic becausew I had already taken physics my junior year.
Free courses.
Then, I had a full scholarship to ASU -- all my tuition and a merit scholarship for having a 1440 SAT. I also had a Unidynamics scholarship.
I gopt a master's in electrical engineering.
We mocked psychology and business students.
http://www.noob.us/humor/the-office-dwight-faces-nerd-tortur...
Are we having fun yet?
God says...
21:20 And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the LORD.
21:21 Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, 21:22 And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin.
21:23 And of Jezebel also spake the LORD, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.
21:24 Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat.
21:25 But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
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The shrinks made me a eunuch
Now God kills them.
Jezebel Killed
30 Then Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she put on eye makeup, arranged her hair and looked out of a window. 31 As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, “Have you come in peace, you Zimri, you murderer of your master?”[e]
32 He looked up at the window and called out, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked down at him. 33 “Throw her down!” Jehu said. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot.
34 Jehu went in and ate and drank. “Take care of that cursed woman,” he said, “and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.” 35 But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet and her hands. 36 They went back and told Jehu, who said, “This is the word of the Lord that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will devour Jezebel’s flesh.[f] 37 Jezebel’s body will be like dung on the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that no one will be able to say, ‘This is Jezebel.’”
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God says... unyielding sing humbledst martyr's access endeavoured replies transformed contemptible 10 twenty watchings wondrously animal chosen
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I did take 2 sats 1210 1440. I took presat 69/70.
I didn't do any preparation -- learned what to expect on the first one.
Fucken silly talking about 1988.
The only thing you have to know IS FUCKEN GOD TALKS!!! THE FUCK YOU THINKING?
God says....
14:18 And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.
14:19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? and another said, Is it I? 14:20 And he answered and said unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth with me in the dish.
14:21 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.
14:22 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.
14:23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to the...
I'm a huge fan of Razer. I own many of their products and would recommend them all, especially the DeathAdder mouse. Seriously, it's quite possibly the best mouse you will ever use.
I didn't get anything ordered with a 90% reduction, but I think I'll be ordered an Orbweaver later today. They deserve it.
1: http://www.digital-forums.com/showthread.php/307773-Misprice...
edit: Spelling, and added the only source I could find.
What mousemat are you using? I was using a Razer Goliathus[1] but switched to a BF3 Razer Scarab[2] my brother won at in an internal DICE raffle before BF3 came out. It is 100x better than the Goliathus and I would recommend a similar 'hard' mat if you don't have one already. Lots of space, very smooth, and very accurate.
1: http://www.razerzone.com/gb-en/store/razer-goliathus-speed-e... 2: http://www.razerzone.com/gb-en/store/battlefield-3-razer-sca...
I am not saying Razer only does this because they see their benefit, but they probably also dont only do it because they are nice people.
The configuration tool was designed in the vein of Steam — it requires an Internet connection to use it. At all. So before you can change the mouse settings, before the mouse will even LOAD its settings, you must create a Razer account and sign in to their online service through the tool. Only then will you be able to do anything with the mouse.
Also like Steam, there is an option to 'go offline', but it (perhaps unintentionally) doesn't seem to persist across sessions. So if you lose your connection and then you reboot the computer or the tool crashes (which is semi-frequent), you're back to where you started — a log-in prompt.
In addition to that, just from a usability perspective, the software is a disaster. It is a mass of grey-on-grey text, modal panes, near-full-screen sliders, and unexplained icons that i dread even thinking about using. In addition, the tool adds an ugly menu-bar icon that you can't get rid of, and once you install the software you can never close it — if you try to kill the tool or any of its background services, the entire thing will respawn. And just to give you that extra punch in the face, every time the tool starts (at boot or because one of its background services crashed) the giant black-and-green blob pops up on top of everything else. HEY, HEY, LOG IN TO YOUR MOUSE NOW
The scroll wheel is also apparently non-configurable on OS X, which is incredible because the default behaviour is some pre-Windows-95 we've-just-invented-scroll-wheels one-pixel-per-rotation insanity.
Lastly, every single update to the software requires that you reboot the entire machine.
I am not exaggerating when i say that i loathe using this god-damn mouse.
I only used the software once, a few years ago. I never logged into anything, it never required internet access, it never frequently updated and it never required a reboot.
You realise you don't need the software right? You can use the mouse perfectly without it. All the software lets you do is change the sensitivity (any good OS will let you do that), turn off the light, and program the "bottom" button. The light is under your hand 90% of the time and is off when your computer is off. It's a non-issue. The button the bottom is in an irritating position and I have never needed to use it. Sure, you could configure it to change sensitivity during a game (consider running and gunning vs. accurate sniping, perhaps?) but in reality no one is going to lift their mouse during an computer game to adjust the sensitivity.
> the default behaviour is some pre-Windows-95 we've-just-invented-scroll-wheels one-pixel-per-rotation insanity.
I have never experienced this problem. I don't know what you're talking about.
Except if you have a mouse like the Naga with more programmable buttons, they're all useless unless you use the software.
It works great on my MX518 so I don't have to use the terrible Logitech software to configure the extra buttons. :)
Regardless, I'm using the old, pre-Synapse drivers and they work ok.
They changed the software package literally less than a week after i bought the DeathAdder. Previously there was a specific 'DeathAdder' utility which, as you said, didn't require any online junk. But they completely removed it from existence once their port of the Windows software left beta or whatever.
I did try installing a copy of it that i had saved from before, but it seems that the act of installing the new software somehow broke the ability to use the old one, and i didn't want to spend hours fucking with some mouse driver.
> You realise you don't need the software right? You can use the mouse perfectly without it.
No, you can't. Or i can't, anyway. The default tracking is unusable to me (i like it much slower and smoother-scaling than most people seem to), and OS X's tracking slider didn't help. The only way to make it even tolerable was to use the software. Additionally, the buttons would be recognised incorrectly unless you told the software what you wanted them to behave as.
> I have never experienced this problem. I don't know what you're talking about.
Obviously i was being facetious, i'm sure it was actually one line per 'click' or whatever. Each click had far too much travel for that to be usable. Especially in comparison to the Magic Mouse and Mighty Mouse, with which you can near-instantaneously flick to the bottom of a long Web page.
If you didn't experience that, i guess i don't know what to tell you.
At least through 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8, and maybe going back longer than that, I've been using ControllerMate to program the functionality of all my mice (and some of my non-Apple keyboards). It's more of a general purpose visual programmer for input devices than a mouse driver, but works great for that limited use case.
It's a great help for the common case with mice of great hardware coupled with terrible software. I haven't installed third-party mouse software since I found it. Might be worth checking out. (Not affiliated, just find it useful...)
http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate
Most of the time installing mouse "drivers" for any vendor it's a waste of time, since the settings they provide should be adjusted in-game (default driver should give you a 1:1 sensitivity and 0 acceleration).
http://www.plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/
But I'm sure they did a full calculation of the costs that they'd have to eat if they honor this mistake and thought it was worth it for the good PR it would create.
I would think that it's not impossible that this was planned.
1234 as a coupon code is even something that people might find by mistake, meaning you wouldn't even have to try hard to seed the rumor. Just put it into the system and know that somewhere in the future, you will get a huge PR without much effort (other than stopping it after a certain period of time and accepting some losses).
To pull this off purposefully wouldn't even have to be too expensive, we have no way of knowing whether they are honouring thousands of orders or a couple of hundred. And regarding margins, a hell of a lot of the costs associated with a typical product sale come from distribution (the distributor takes a cut, the retailer/etailer takes a cut, plus MDF marketing costs), so this deal being through the Razer site will certainly help keep the losses down.
Also side note to jamornh: the Blade isn't available in the UK yet, so bad example - but your point still stands, 90% is definitely a loss.
If this was planned by Razer as a marketing trick then it is quite elaborate, although completely possible. There seems to be several hundred people on the comments who mentioned they made purchases and some would even cancel their order.
In order for this to be staged they would have to limit the number of times that the code could be used (allowable "loss" budget? max number of uses?) and then pretend to realize the mistake and take the site down at the right time (maybe when the "loss" reached a certain amount.) I guess it isn't completely inconceivable... but if that's the case, well-played Razer.
(And I don't think the Blade will ever be available outside North America. It's an irrelevant product that they created as a marketing gimmick.)
Selling those for $250 is obviously a massive loss on just the hardware alone.
Processing those orders doesn't seems that fair to me. Same rare people get 90% (!) off, all others don't. And FCFS isn't a cool, really fair principle. It is often used, because it is easy to implement and doesn't require more information than just time.
Also I expect the rate of people who ordered just because it is cheap and have no real appropriation is pretty high on that discount. Not talking about people who just wanna resell it on eBay.
What else could they have done?
Again, FCFS is some type of fairness, but I think a pretty bad one.Also not sure if this is real marketing. Are their clients really that community based and speaking about such thing? Aren't more just angry because they hadn't the chance to use the opportunity?
Facebook comment (from source): "Well that's absurdly consumer friendly"
TL;DR: If you give some customers 90% discount for no reason, it means unfair prices for all others. Is that really consumer friendly?
Check the next comment on that post, a guy cancelling his order and redoing it at full price. It really is a strong community of enthusiasts.
Gnome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEspwQ4_DAU
God says...
14:10 And the king said, Whoever saith ought unto thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee any more.
14:11 Then said she, I pray thee, let the king remember the LORD thy God, that thou wouldest not suffer the revengers of blood to destroy any more, lest they destroy my son. And he said, As the LORD liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth.
14:12 Then the woman said, Let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak one word unto my lord the king. And he said, Say on.
14:13 And the woman said, Wherefore then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God? for the king doth speak this thing as one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished.
14:14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.
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Mental Illness -- "as one which is faulty".
That's also about Gnome.
Meh
Kiss my berds, God.
God says...
sores nights trust ministers Belarus reach delights decide deceits discharge figurative sayest jealous recognised edification exist alive greediness tears gutenberg Trinity delay uman prairienet forementioned ofttimes healthfully enticing beatings Evangelists taken moulded crash_and_burn fuller helping Word payable epic_fail needy tranquil saidst salary Read disengage burden uttereth unjustly currents lower contentious Strengthen admiration prated pleasure-seeking lusted reins repress reading rood pretend unknowingly me- cleared resistest
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God says...
17:23 Therefore now, LORD, let the thing that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house be established for ever, and do as thou hast said.
17:24 Let it even be established, that thy name may be magnified for ever, saying, The LORD of hosts is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel: and let the house of David thy servant be established before thee.
17:25 For thou, O my God, hast told thy servant that thou wilt build him an house: therefore thy servant hath found in his heart to pray before thee.
17:26 And now, LORD, thou art God, and hast promised this goodness unto thy servant: 17:27 Now therefore let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may be before thee for ever: for thou blessest, O LORD, and it shall be blessed for ever.
18:1 Now after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them, and took Gath and her towns out of the hand of the Philistines.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbCrxXegREA
God says...
of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.
9:7 Thou art the LORD the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham; 9:8 And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his seed, and hast performed thy words; for thou art righteous: 9:9 And didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red sea; 9:10 And shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land: for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them. So didst thou get thee a name, as it is this day.
9:11 And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone...
This 'mishap' may have similar yet increased effects because of the impressive way they handled the situation. For example, I doubt Razer would have ever imagined their story landing on the frontpage of a high-traffic site like HN, but now that it has, I (and probably hundreds or thousands of others) have gone to their site to get more info.
Really shows that with smart and agile situation-response, you can turn an unpleasant circumstance into an opportunity.
People are primarily driven by price when they buy goods, so after 6 months or so people will forget this extremely generous act. Razer fans will remain razer fans, but unless Razer has a product leaps and bounds ahead of the competition (some are, but most are only marginally superior) very few will become loyal customers due to this act of kindness.
[1] http://businessmodelinstitute.com/is-customer-retention-the-...
The longtime Razer fans to some degree seem to be canceling their orders. At least with the ones you'll be shipping still I'd think the majority of those are strong PC gaming enthusiasts who have friends who are as well. Their stuff is quite shiny and attractive in general.
Certainly not!
Edit: thanks for making it clearer below
If it's an honest mistake, there's no requirement to sell it, and beyond that most email confirmations say something like this from Amazon:
This e-mail is only an acknowledgement of receipt of your order and your contract to purchase these items is not complete until we send you an e-mail notifying you that the items have been dispatched to you.
In Germany, for example, displayed prices are merely an invitation to make an offer (”I want to buy this!”) which van then be accepted or rejected by the seller. Only if the seller accepts a contract of sale actually comes into existence. By the way, if the seller accepts but changes the conditions (by, say, changing the price) a contract of sale also doesn't exist. The buyer then has another chance to accept or reject this new offer.
It's pretty common sense, actually. Oh, and this doesn't mean that sellers can display wrong prices on purpose. That would be misleading advertising. But if it's a mistake it's not a problem.
Think about the psychology of such love: Enjoy the envy of Hell.
---- Genesis 4
New International Version (NIV)
Cain and Abel
4 Adam[a] made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.[b] She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth[c] a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”[d] While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
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God says... that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.
30:20 Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress them.
30:21 And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the LORD.
30:22 And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
30:23 Behold, the whirlwind of the LORD goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked.
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The covenant is that you hold-up your end of the conversation -- that's an offering of praise or love or hymn or something.
I listened to country.
Praise You fer hound doogs and pick-ups and guns and corn on the cob and hay rides and horses.
God says...
Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.) 7:13 So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, 7:14 I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows.
7:15 Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
7:16 I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.
7:17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
7:18 Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.
7:19 For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey: 7:20 He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed.
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Here's a bear :-)
http://imgur.com/a/ofZ3o
God says...
Mordecai for this? Then said the king's servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him.
6:4 And the king said, Who is in the court? Now Haman was come into the outward court of the king's house, to speak unto the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.
6:5 And the king's servants said unto him, Behold, Haman standeth in the court. And the king said, Let him come in.
6:6 So Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour? Now Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself? 6:7 And Haman answered the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to honour, 6:8 Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head: 6:9...
You can find it at http://www.razerzone.com/synapse2 and the tech specs there state that "Valid e-mail, software download, license acceptance, and internet connection needed to activate full features and for software updates." For a bloody mouse driver.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121105/17594020942/when-m...
That said most of razer's customers are repeated purchasers and that honoring the orders is going to generate a lot of good will among its core customers. A very bold move though.
Then they asked for my credit card info. Without https.
Those customers who feel bad and were originally willing to pay the full price savings will likely cancel and reorder. Those customers who feel bad and genuinely could not pay the full price, will keep their discounted orders, and the company will get to keep those people as customers well into the future.
I'm curious how transparent they'll be with how many canceled their orders when the dust settles - would be a good case study for other companies in this boat who want to trust their customers to do the right thing for themselves.