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What's a sale without a scandal in Pakistan?

There have been catfights and broken doors at sale events in the past, so why should the sale at the Pakistani everywoman's shopping haven — Khaadi — pass by without incident?

A photograph of an apparently tampered price-tag attached to a two-piece Khaadi suit, being sold at 50% discount went viral yesterday. The owner of the photograph, a customer named Yasir Tanveer, claimed that Khaadi is "increas[ing] the prices before giving promotion [i.e. discounts]".

"I found more than 10 different articles having double price tags, shockingly high price tags were pasted on the low price tags just to cheat innocent consumers," claimed Yasir.

The post went viral, and fast.

Soon, however, Yasir offered a clarification, following a phone call from Khaadi.

However, the clarification has since been removed, and Yasir's now sticking to his original complaint.

We speak to Yasir and Khaadi to get to the bottom of the matter.

"I went shopping to Khaadi day before yesterday," says Yasir Tanveer, referring to the first day of the Season End sale. "I noticed there and then that the outfits I picked out had double price-tags on. I asked a salesman about it and he told me the tags aren't removable, so a new, correct tag was placed on top of the other, incorrect one. He also told me to take it or leave it. I bought the items and came home."

"I was still angry about the incident, so I wrote a Facebook post about it. I didn't anticipate that it'd go so viral, not when meray ghar walay bhhi meray status nahi parhtay (my own family members don't usually read my statuses)."

But his post went viral, and Yasir got a call from Khaadi last night, explaining that the double price tags were the result of a pricing mistake.

"So I amended my post, apologising to all the people who read and shared my post for the misunderstanding. I had used harsh words for the brand, and I didn't feel any shame in having to apologise for an unintentional mistake of mine."

However, Yasir has since deleted the clarification.

"I noticed a few comments criticising my apology, my statement was getting twisted, so I removed the clarification."

And Yasir isn't totally convinced by Khaadi's explanation.

"I'm still wondering how it is that so many outfits were incorrectly tagged, and that all of the underneath tags were of lower price."

Khaadi, on the other hand, says that this was a systems' issue from their factory or retail side.

"There are two kinds of products, kurta and kurta dupatta. A kurta is [sold for] Rs 5,000, kurta dupatta for Rs 7,500. Usually when tagging is done, it's the retail side or the factory side, we're trying to figure out which end made the mistake. We sold more than 200,000 units this weekend, and it was crazy due to the sale. We have spoken to the customer and told him he bought a kurta and dupatta which is Rs7,500. We understand that we need to change the complete tag so as to not cause discomfort to the customer," said Mohammed Tahir, Head of Sales at Khaadi.

Khaadi CEO Shamoon Sultan's own two cents were: "Owing to the high number of units sold in the sale with the same staff strength as regular days, Khaadi should be some given some leeway."

So, is Khaadi duping its customers? Regular shoppers corroborate that two-piece suit actually costs Rs 7,500, and the incorrect price-tagging sounds like a plausible explanation. What the incident highlights is the need for brands to train sale staff better, to cater to customer queries even at peak season. The entire brouhaha boils down to an irate customer after a bad sales experience, that is, a totally avoidable situation.