It pains me to write this because I've spent hundreds of dollars at Fandom K in the past and generally enjoy supporting small, family-owned businesses. On this particular visit, I drove from Orange County with my daughter to buy her a small treat for doing well at school.
Unfortunately, the experience at checkout was disappointing. I brought the Stray Kids "Karma" album (Karma version) to the register, and the price on the sticker was lower than what I was going to be charged. I was told it would actually be $7 more than the listed sticker price because it included a POB, which the owner pointed to on a sticker on the front.
The difference was only seven dollars, but that wasn't really the point. I didn't feel comfortable paying more than the price listed, especially when the extra charge was for what could amount to a random photo card. I've also seen this same album available for less at other shops and on Amazon, but I chose this store specifically because I wanted to support a small business.
In the end, I walked away from the purchase. I'm trying to teach my daughter how to be a smart consumer and that it's okay to walk away when something doesn't feel right. Charging more than the listed price creates an awkward situation for the customer, and in my view the right thing to do would have been to honor the sticker price rather than put the customer in that position. I'm fairly certain that there are consumer bait and switch laws that make this an illegal practice as well. I did not even want to argue, and we walked away with my kid disappointed.
Going forward, I'll probably be more inclined to shop somewhere like K Place, which is closer for us and has never given me issues like this, and generally has better prices anyway. It's a shame, because with several major album releases coming up in March and April that my daughter would likely want, we probably would have spent a few hundred dollars here. I would have preferred to give that business to a small shop, but I can't in good conscience continue supporting a store that operates this way and disrespects the customer.
Edited to reply to Business Owner's response:
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I do appreciate it, and I want to acknowledge again that I've supported your shop in the past because I genuinely like supporting small family-run businesses.
I'm also very familiar with K-pop albums, POBs, and the fact that different versions can be priced differently. That's exactly why this situation caught me off guard. When a product has a price sticker on it, and that same item also has a sticker indicating the inclusion (in this case the POB), it is reasonable for a customer to assume that the price listed on the product is the price they will pay at the register.
My concern isn't really about the seven dollars. It's about the practice of discovering a higher price only at checkout. From a consumer standpoint, that creates an awkward situation and puts the customer in the position of either paying more than the displayed price or walking away at the counter. At best it feels like poor business practice, and in many places price discrepancies like that can also raise consumer protection concerns.
My suggestion would simply be that if the store carries different versions of an album at different price points, each version should clearly have the correct price listed on the item itself. Expecting customers to infer that a sticker noting an inclusion also means the price will be higher than the listed price isn't something most retailers do, and clearer pricing would help preserve trust and manage expectations.
To be candid, I was tempted to just pay the additional seven dollars to avoid disappointing my daughter in the moment. But I'm trying to teach her how to be a thoughtful consumer, and that sometimes the right choice is to walk away when the terms of a purchase change at the register. Paying it would have reinforced a situation that felt uncomfortably close to a bait-and-switch from a customer perspective.
I do appreciate your response and wish your business well. My hope is simply that clearer pricing on the products themselves might prevent similar situations for other customers in the future. read more