A Black Friday shopper was shocked to find that the price of a product had actually increased when he visited the website of digital retailer Takealot.com.

Gerhard Olivier spotted that the price of a JBL Charge 3 Bluetooth speaker had increased from R2‚199 on Thursday to R2‚299 the following day‚ billed as a shoppers’ delight.

“This means Takealot was selling an item as ‘reduced’ when in fact the prices actually increased on Black Friday‚” Pretorius said in an e-mail sent to TimesLIVE and other media outlets.

“Funny enough‚ when looking for the exact same item again on Takealot‚ it can be found again at Thursday’s price.”

But Takealot said there was a perfectly good explanation.

“These are actually two different product listings.

“The listing shown at R2‚199 is our own (Takealot.com) stock‚ and the listing shown at R2‚299 is one of our third party seller’s stock (namely Shop and Ship Online)‚” Takealot said in an emailed response to a TimesLIVE query.

“Since Thursday‚ 23 November‚ Takealot.com has been offering the JBL Charge 3 Bluetooth Speaker (black) at R2‚199‚ and the product is still currently available at this price.

“We however ran out of stock at our warehouse from Friday‚ 24 November‚ and the item has since therefore gone on lead time and is only available in 3-5 working days‚” the company said.

“We always try to offer our customers the best buying options with regards to pricing and availability. As the third party seller still had stock at our warehouse on Friday‚ they won the ‘buying box’ and their stock was offered to customers as first choice as they would be able to get the item sooner‚ albeit it a slightly higher price.”

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