Why Oakleygate has left me confused...

Honestly you lot don't get out much do you?

Oakley retailers make 50% margin, Oakley buy back old stock and still make a profit.

The sale price of anything direct from Oakley via the web probably constitutes 70% profit, given that they make they wholesale margin plus steal all the retailer margin as well.

No one got sacked over this, it happens all the time.

They were under no obligation to sell at that price, they chose to do it.

Its nothing like looting a shop and taking what is not yours.

I would be a little uncomfortable as it appears a genuine mistake. However, I agree with others insofar as those who purchase goods online (cyclists being a prime example) are now conditioned not to accept RRP. Mailshots from retailers, 'PSA' type threads on forums and the more subtle guerilla marketing techniques all propagate this. Sadly, because of the above, a mistake that might have gone unnoticed back in the day was jumped on by thousands. I wander what Oakleys sales revenue has been like since this event. There's also more Jawbones out on the road now - great advertising albeit not to my taste. I prefer these:

http://positivo-espresso.blogspot.com/2011/04/cipollini-at-its-best.html

Not sure I'd listen to the self-righteous Daily Fail reader type comments above

If a company mis-label, mis-price or under-sell their own goods, it's their lookout, not yours

And given their usual markup I doubt it'll seriously impact their quarterly results

Well happy with my free Radars. Not a pang of guilt at all.

I'm a loyal Oakley customer and didn't react kindly to the email sent out.

Great PR in not charging anyone. I would have been happy to pay the discounted price.

I be purchasing more Oakley products in the future for sure.

personally i find the frame shape totally ugly.. imo frames esp on cycle glasses need to be very fine so that there is no way the frame could ever block even a sliver of side vision.. i'm not a herd animal, i wear what suits and pleases me , oakley never attracted me no matter what celebrity or pro cyclist wore them.. best of luck to the 'lucky' buyers who likely gave the manufacturer treble what they cost to make.. in these straightened times why is it that while most of us suffer the PLC'S still want to increase their profits.. time they had a taste of bad times .. slap it well up them..

Nice shades, but I suspect I wouldn't dare wear them even at 50% off. Enjoy them - you ordered them at the given price and they sold them to you. It's a legal transaction.

Or is the drop in demand simply that people who were contemplating buying custom Oakleys in the near future jumped on this and so had no need to place the orders they otherwise would?

Two people may have been sacked but Oakley had no obligation to sell at those prices. To do so was a purely business decision. I suspect the reasons would have been more likely the flawed payment system, highly likely automated, which screwed up customers' cards. Either way, we're just speculating so it would be foolish to assume the reasoning.

I love the implied idea above, that cyclists should somehow be on some higher moral plane than the norm. How quaint

The question you raise is really: "Is this mistaken guilt or not?"

If you feel guilty then you need to do the 'right thing' whatever that is.

As someone who confessed to receiving a 'free' (nothing is ever free!) duplicate set of tyres this week from a shop I can say in my case I felt much better.

The idea of people buying 5 pairs of glasses is just plain greed.

Or metal.

On the sacking front, oakley need not have suffered any monetary loss from the missprice. if the developers were removed because they were incompetent or attempting fraud that is a separate issue from benefiting from the missprice.

I doubt that any sports shop sells particularly many pairs of oakleys anyway given how overpriced they are for materials and function.

if it's any consolation you still paid a lot of money for some branded plastic.

Morning - I have it on very good authority that 2 US based oakley bods from their web based team have been removed from post. I also believe that independent bike stores in the UK (and other sports shops in the uk) have seen a large drop in demand for custom oakleys over the past 2 weeks because people now know what the trade prices are - in some cases the deals oakley have honoured are better than trade that we can get! Hell of a deal if you are after that sort of thing though.

I'm filled with a bucket load of 'meh'.

I see no difference between this and thieving rioters, selfish people leaping upon an opportunity to lavish themselves with pointless consumer stuff.

Feel guilty? Good, because it shows I'm right. And you know it.

Yes, someone will have paid the price of this mistake and random people claiming it could have been a marketing ploy are doing nothing more than covering their own guilt.

Cyclists really disappoint me on a frequent basis.

What I thought was nice was the number of people who made charitable donations.

Selling law is designed so that it's absolutely fine to place the order and fine for Oakley not to honour it if they choose not to. It's all right and proper to place an order, and would have been all right and proper for Oakley not to sell at those prices. It's legal, above board and incomparable to looting an Oakley store. No-one would have lost their job because there was no way they'd directly caused the goods to be sold at low prices - just orders to be placed.

There should be no guilt in making an "offer to treat" as it legally is. But kudos to Oakley for doing what they did (even if it was only because their payment system bungled the process and resulted in some people having cards cancelled or overcharged).

I actually didn't realise the discount was so much when I ordered. I've got several pairs dating back to 1994 but they've evidently gone up a fair bit since I last bought any..!

You are now going to feel even more guilty, oakley have shipped them free of charge. If the have charged you let their customer service manager know and he'll arrange a refund.

Honestly JTC don't beat yourself up on this one. I'm making a slightly educated guess here that the amount of margin built in to a pair of Oakley Jawbones will still see Oakley making a profit even at 50 per cent off (especially if they are selling them direct).

Some of the best brains in the industry work for Oakley, you have to be on top of your game to work with Unobtanium after all, who's to say this wasn't all some cunning marketing stunt.

As to what it says about cyclists… well, they are products of the society they live in, same as everyone else.