The BBC reports that the product in question is the HP ZBook 17 G2, one of HP’s pricey mobile workstation PCs aimed at businesses. Over the weekend, the company’s UK store accidentally triggered a sale on the item, reducing its price down to £1.58 including VAT.
Customers browsing HP’s website noticed the mistake and took advantage of it, ordering the laptop at the advertised price. The listing said “Was £2,378.30, Now £1.58 VAT incl.” A separate message highlighted the saving of £2,376.72.
When people began using social media to share the deal, HP became aware of its mistake. On Saturday, it briefly shut down the store to correct the error and amend the listing. The “promotional pricing” has been removed and the laptop is now retailing at its full list price.
Disappointed buyers have been told their orders have been cancelled. HP will be refunding everyone involved. “We apologise sincerely to impacted customers for any inconvenience caused,” HP said in a statement. “We can confirm that due to a processing error, select products were wrongly priced on our UK website over the weekend. This has now been corrected with related orders cancelled.”
HP is within its rights to cancel orders placed by customers because they have not yet been shipped. Consumer help bureau Citizens Advice confirmed to the BBC that retailers are allowed to cancel orders if they have made a “genuine and honest mistake” in the listing of product prices. It allows for website errors that retailers “should have noticed” before making changes public.
The laptop itself is a high-performance machine designed for use as a professional workstation. It is available with fourth-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, up to 32GB of RAM and one of several “workstation-calibre” NVIDIA Quadro discrete graphics cards.
There’s two dedicated drive slots allowing for a combination of a 1TB hard drive and a solid state drive. The 17.3-inch display is offered in 1600×900 and 1920×1080 resolutions, optimised for all-day usage with wide viewing angles and accompanied by a large 83WHr battery.
HP isn’t the first company to dramatically under-price its products in an embarrassing website slip-up. On Amazon Prime Day last year, the online retailer inadvertently listed the LG G4, the company’s then-flagship smartphone, for just $0.01. The Lightning deal quickly proved popular with customers as the phone went out of stock.
Due to the nature of Prime Day, all the phones were scheduled to be delivered in a day or less. Because of this, some of the devices were already with couriers and on the move before Amazon realised its mistake. A few lucky customers ended with the G4 arriving on their doorstep having paid just one cent. HP ZBook buyers won’t be so fortunate though. They’ll be contacted by the company by email and be issued a full refund.
