Re: UKNM: e-commerce own goal

[Craig Pickup]

Ray Taylor wrote:


>In order to make the contract stick, the customer would have to prove to a

>court that the �3.00 price ticket was an "offer". In the normal course of

>events a price ticket in a store is.


It is a well established principle that a price displayed on an item in a

store does not constitute an offer in terms of a contract of sale. The

offer is actually made by the customer proceeding to the checkout and

offering to pay a particular amount for the item. If that offer is then

accepted by the vendor a contract of sales comes into force and is legally

binding.


In Argos's case the crux must depend on how far into the sales procedure it

went. If the particular individuals who attempted to buy the TVs actually

made the offer to purchase at �3 and the web site returned a message that

their offer had been accepted, something along the lines of "thank you for

your order, the goods will be sent in due course", then that would seem on

the face of it a legally binding contract on Argos. If on the other hand

the web site merely returned a message saying something to the effect

"thank you for your order, this will be processed in due course", then

Argos never actually got to the point of accepting the offer and no

contract was made.


Craig Pickup

Digitrade Ltd

17 Gateway Business Centre

210 Church Road

London, E10 7JQ


Tel: 020 8 988 9660 Fax: 020 8 988 9661 

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