Amazon once sold a Rs 185 Surf Excel pack for Rs 82,740. Then it had to stop 90 deliveries
The unusually high price might ordinarily have been expected to prevent sales. Instead, the listing was circulated on Twitter, along with a suggestion that customers could buy the product, preserve their invoices, and approach a consumer court seeking compensation.
In 2015, a spreadsheet error briefly transformed a ₹185 pack of Surf Excel into a Rs 82,740 product on Amazon India. Surprisingly, within 40 minutes, 90 customers placed orders, resulting in nearly Rs 74 lakh worth of sales that the company had to reverse. Anubhav N, Business Head at Amazon, revealed this incident on LinkedIn. At the time, Amazon had recently launched the household supplies and personal care category, and Cloudtail, one of its largest sellers, managed the products and their pricing.
An Excel sheet uploaded by someone had mistakenly placed the date column in the price column, causing the price to become a number. As a result, the usually affordable Surf Excel was listed at the price of a two-wheeler. Although high prices typically deter customers, the listing was shared on Twitter, prompting orders to flood in.
Anubhav recounted that at 6:20, a customer service agent called, sounding urgent, as if the building was on fire. The next 30 minutes were spent identifying and correcting the issue. While the price was fixed, the challenge lay in preventing the 90 packages from reaching customers' homes. It took 12 hours to retrieve the goods, as the system was designed for swift delivery.
Out of the 90 orders, 55 hadn't reached the warehouse yet, so they were cancelled easily. Fifteen had arrived at the warehouse and required managerial approval to be halted. Twelve were already packed and prepared for dispatch, necessitating approval from the category director at 1 am. Eight had already left for morning delivery, requiring approval from Amazon's country head.
Two more packs were with delivery personnel, ready to begin their routes. Amazon's operations team tracked down the delivery personnel and asked them not to deliver the products. For Anubhav, this incident made him lose trust in Excel's ability to handle dates accurately. He noted that it was the only time during his tenure at Amazon when he received praise for preventing product deliveries.
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