Of all the products in all the world …
A “technical glitch” on the Walmart website will cause untold numbers of customers to lose their pre-orders for one of 2017’s hottest products: the SNES Classic Edition.
Walmart confirmed in an email to pre-order customers today that it “will have to cancel” all orders placed for the SNES Classic on the night of July 21, when the retailer accidentally made the product available. During a window of about half an hour starting shortly after 11:30 p.m. EDT, people could go to Walmart’s website and pre-order the diminutive retro console. But that wasn’t supposed to happen.
Some pre-order customers began receiving cancellation emails on Saturday, while others didn’t — surely a “no news is good news” scenario — which led to widespread confusion about the status of everyone’s orders. Walmart customer service representatives told some customers that it would be canceling all orders, but the company had not made an official statement until today.
“Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch, the Super Nintendo Classic Edition was mistakenly made available last Friday evening ahead of the official release date,” said Deserie Dulaney, senior director for customer care at Walmart, in an email to pre-order customers this afternoon. “We, regrettably, will have to cancel this item on your order. We know that this is incredibly disappointing to you, and we’re truly sorry for this mistake.”
Dulaney noted that anybody who has been charged for the SNES Classic, which includes customers who paid with a gift card or PayPal, will be refunded once their order is canceled. Those who used a credit card have not been charged.
As for when Walmart will begin taking pre-orders for the SNES Classic, the email provides no information on that front, except to suggest that customers “check the product page on Walmart.com prior to [Sept. 29, the console’s release date] for any updates.”
Although Walmart’s email includes an apology from Dulaney, it does not offer any sort of make-good to customers, who must be feeling crestfallen at losing their SNES Classic pre-order when they thought they had one locked in. In situations such as this, retailers will sometimes give aggrieved customers something for their trouble, such as a discount in the future or a gift card. We’ve asked Walmart about this, and we’ll update this article with any information we receive.
Source: Polygon – Full