The intel hadn't been wrong, per se. It had just pointed them in the wrong direction. There was a sale, and it was the alchemist guild's potions being sold. However, it wasn't the guild doing the selling.
The Coalition's men stationed around the city at the branch stores and known retailers were in the wrong place. They had come out in great numbers with enough money on them to make sure no one else could get their hands on the potions.
Naturally, they were unable to respond properly to Derot's trick.
Even if there was someone with enough authority to order around the men from the different merchants of the Coalition, there was no way they could organize the people spread out all over the capital city in a short time. There was no way they could split up the men and the money to go to the different stores and try to go through with the plan anyway.
