I’ve noticed a few underhand methods recently in marketing emails that have dropped into my inbox. In most cases, it has been newly started-up companies, probably moving into online sales because of closure of retail outlets. Most are easy to spot. Crude is the best way of describing the attempts.

There was the one with a hidden price. A marketing email where, after one had clicked-through to a gushing landing page, there was still just the promise of outstanding value for something that I didn’t particularly want, although the desire to discover just how far they’d go forced me on. I had to click on the item, then go to the cart to discover the price, and even then, the postage wasn’t shown.

If they had wanted to irritate me, I cannot think of a better way of going about it. Until, that is, I discovered I’d been tricked by a company I regularly buy from.

They had this rather endearing way with email marketing where the item in the Subject Line is infrequently the only product in the email. Often, the subsequent items are a bit of a bargain and I’ve frequently bought from them.

The headline item was a VDU at £255, reduced from £261. Not a massive reduction, but a reduction, although I expect there’s a fair percentage to come off yet. We’ll see. Underneath, below the fold, was the offer of stick-on letters for keyboards, at a very reasonable £2.99. I remember thinking the postage would have killed any profit, but I bought it. 

When it arrived I discovered there were two complete sets. It seemed I’d paid £5.98. My fault as I should have checked. However, I’m a regular customer, and I trusted them. Although not relevant, it was for a paltry sum. They’ve upset someone who has bought expensive items from them in the past, and was looking to do so again, and at a time when many are keeping wallets closed.

Don’t be tempted to go for the easy profit as it is very short term and a lost email marketing subscriber is a hit on profits.