Gearbest "chinaphonearena" coupon gets a price UP instead down

[IgyBoy]

Can somebody explain on what is going on at gearbest.com and the pricing when it comes to coupon use?


Let's say I want to buy a Cubot S308 ( http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_67022.html )
It's current list price is 127$.
I wanted to use the "chinaphonearena" code to see if I could get the discount(not saying it's not affordable anyway), but after adding the phone to my cart and typing in the discount code, the price goes UP.


The price of the phone as listed in my cart is now 170$, and price after the coupon is 153$.

Can someone explain the logic behind this?
I tried to reproduce the issue with other phones, and it behaves differently for each phone. For some you get the discount,and for some the price goes up significantly.

Nonetheless, I couldn't find any reasoning on how the pricing logic works when you apply the coupon.
There is absolutely no way of how much the phone would cost after applying the code without first adding it to cart and actually applying the code.

Also, how is it possible that the price with the coupon goes UP? It should, in worst case scenario, stay the same.

If someone could,please, shed some light on the issue, I would be grateful.

Regards,
Igor

[NexusTrix]

Hello Igor, if the phone is already specially discounted, you won't save any more with the coupon. The coupon will work on phones that aren't already specially discounted.

[www.GearBest.com]

Hi dear,
Coupon code can not be used with vip price, special offer ,group deal at the same time. We already had a discount on the product , So after coupon the price of this product was $153 (original price: $170 ) , was a discount for the original price. Hope you could understand!
Many Thanks!

[IgyBoy]

Hello Igor, if the phone is already specially discounted, you won't save any more with the coupon. The coupon will work on phones that aren't already specially discounted.

Hi NexusTrix. Tnx for the reply.

Anyhow, it should never be the case that phone price changes UP when applying the coupon. In worst case, it should ignore the coupon. Or at least, the price to which the coupon would be applied to should be marked on the initial page.

In the case I mentioned above(Cubot S308), the price on the start page reads:
Regular Price: $374.04 Discount : 66% off
Price: $127.93

The price that I get as "regular price" after applying the coupon is 170$ and discounted price then is 150$.

Where did this 170$ come from?Why is it not mentioned on the start page?

It's a bit non-transparent and the logic is a bit......not logical.

---

Hi dear,
Coupon code can not be used with vip price, special offer ,group deal at the same time. We already had a discount on the product , So after coupon the price of this product was $153 (original price: $170 ) , was a discount for the original price. Hope you could understand!
Many Thanks!

Hi Gearbest,

please check my reply to NexusTrix.
I understand it can't be used in case when there is already some discount on the phone, but it would be nice if there is an information on what was the price before and after discount.
For the case above, the price of $170 is nowhere to be found on the page. It states that the regular price is 374.04$, so it's a bit confusing to figure our what is happening.

The first thought would be that it's some kind of a scam - that is exactly what happened this morning to a friend.

A friend of mine (to whom I recommended your site to) decided to purchase a new Cubot X9( its on pre-sale) and I advised him to use the coupon to get some discount. After applying the coupon, the price for the phone went UP,and then the coupon was applied to that price, so he came to me asking what is going on, and is that OK.
He pre-ordered the phone anyway, but it was hard to explain to him what is happening.

[NexusTrix]

You do make an excellent suggestion, though not sure the "shop logic" (not gearbest, but the actual software running the site) can apply this sort of logic.

*if VIP price *then show message "price already at lowest" & do not change price*
*else apply chinaphonearena discount*

@gearbest , what do you think? Can software engineers make like this?

[IgyBoy]

You do make an excellent suggestion, though not sure the "shop logic" (not gearbest, but the actual software running the site) can apply this sort of logic.

*if VIP price *then show message "price already at lowest" & do not change price*
*else apply chinaphonearena discount*

@gearbest , what do you think? Can software engineers make like this?

Yes, that would also be good for a start, but also having the start/regular price information would also be great.
If they would have a base price displayed somewhere, from which we start the price calculation from, would also solve the problem and aid in reducing the confusion, as in that case the client would be able to make a conclusion on his own and see where that 170$ actually came from,and how did it now end up on 150$.

I guess Gearbest will know the best if that is possible, but it would absolutely help in transparency and the overall shopping experience.
Because,as the things stand at the moment, you really can't know what the phone will really cost in the end.

[NexusTrix]

The problem here is that the base price is constantly changing, depending on what Gearbest is paying and which phones are currently on special, etc.

They have literally 10's of thousands of products. I understand what you're saying, just not sure how feasible this is with the amount of items they sell.

Best solution for now, put the coupon in, if it makes it cheaper, use the coupon. If not, don't.

Hopefully they can apply some sort of logic as I explained above so at least some message comes up letting them know what's going on. I agree, it doesn't look good when you apply a coupon and the price gets more expensive.

[edcoolio]

I've been super busy, but I feel as if I must chime in here:

You should always check your final in-cart price before you buy from any website, but that should go without saying.

I have seen Newegg and TigerDirect coupons which do exactly the same thing, and those are GIANT corporations with practically unlimited funds to spend on their websites.

Gearbest is a good trusted China supplier that gives a discount at a fair price for products backed by a warranty. That is what is important and seems (unfortunately) hard to come by. It was good that this situation was pointed out so that others can have a heads-up, but beyond that point... well... it sounds like nitpicking.

To quote NexusTrix:
"Best solution for now, put the coupon in, if it makes it cheaper, use the coupon. If not, don't."

[IgyBoy]

I've been super busy, but I feel as if I must chime in here:

You should always check your final in-cart price before you buy from any website, but that should go without saying.

I have seen Newegg and TigerDirect coupons which do exactly the same thing, and those are GIANT corporations with practically unlimited funds to spend on their websites.

Gearbest is a good trusted China supplier that gives a discount at a fair price for products backed by a warranty. That is what is important and seems (unfortunately) hard to come by. It was good that this situation was pointed out so that others can have a heads-up, but beyond that point... well... it sounds like nitpicking.

To quote NexusTrix:
"Best solution for now, put the coupon in, if it makes it cheaper, use the coupon. If not, don't."

You might be right about nitpicking.
But I think you figured it out wrong.
I never said that Gearbest is not good, or trusted company. I myself am a customer, and have it recommended to at least dozen of my colleagues of which I know at least 5 of them made a significant purchase from the site.

You are also right about in-cart price check before buying, but I was actually referring to the whole process before you get to the cart price check.

I don't know about Newegg and TricerDirect and their funds for the websites, but trust me, I saw more than one bad implementation of web shop coming from a bunch of either small or relatively big companies.

But then again, it might be just me.
My job usually is to rectify this kind of stuff, because I work for a company producing banking and software for financial institutions so I'm a bit nit-picker when it comes to stuff like this.

[nikstar]

I was in the same place a few months ago. There is no logic.
I will give you an example. There is a phone with an already discount (as they said).
Actual price 200USD - 40% discount = 120USD. So if you try to apply a discount coupon you will end up paying more than before.
I will accept the gear best logic (you cannot apply a discount coupon to an already discounted price) ONLY if the other competitors sell that phone at 200USD.
If all the other shops sell that phone at 120USD, then ALL this discount thing is FAKE.
If you check almost all other phones at gearbest have already a discount, so you cannot apply "chinaphonearena" coupon nowhere.
All this (discount coupon) is just a marketing trick.
You can find better prices on other shops even if gearbest's prices already have a ~20-30% discount.(As they said!!)
In conclusion you can buy the same product in other places at lower or equal price but the difference is that the other shops ARE NOT advertising 60%!!!!!! discount.