6 pm.com makes an expensive mistake

CALIFORNIA: Internet retailer 6pm.com, a Zappos sister site, mistakenly priced almost all its products at $49.99 on May 21, 2010.

As per media reports all items in the store were capped at a maximum price of $49.95--given that some products on the site normally sell for well over $1,000 for six hours early Friday morning, resulting in a loss of more than $1.6 million.

"When we figured out the mistake was happening, we had to shut down the site for a bit until we got the pricing problem fixed," Aaron Magness, director of brand marketing and business development for parent company Zappos Development, wrote in a blog post.

"While we’re sure this was a great deal for customers, it was inadvertent, and we took a big loss selling so many items so far under cost. However, it was our mistake. We will be honoring all purchases that took place on 6pm.com during our mess up. We apologize to anyone that was confused and/or frustrated during out little hiccup and thank you all for being such great customers. We hope you continue to Shop. Save. Smile. at 6pm.com", said company.

The error only applied to products which were for sale on 6pm.com but not on sister site Zappos.com.