If you need a car charger for your cell phone, the instinct is to go to the phone company, walk into their lobby, and buy one for $29.95. Now how did I know that was the price? They all seem to be, because that’s what we’re willing to pay. Instead, you can go to the Cell Phone Shop and order one for $2.99. I recently bought two new ones for two different phones, the total bill including shipping was less than $10. A few days later a package arrived from China, and there were the perfectly good working chargers, albeit knock-offs.
I have a problem with buying staple products from overseas, but I have a bigger problem with paying a price in retail that is more than 10 times the value of the thing, particularly something as dumb as a cell phone charger.
There ought to be a rule or law or something that dictates that all cell phone charter plugs be the same. I swear, there must be 20 chargers in my house, all obsolete, most of which I paid $29.95 for. There is something very wrong about that, something as bad as using plastic utensils for a single piece of pastry.
Once you buy from the Cell Phone Shop, however, you receive these emails with “specials” like the one I am showing here:
Two things about this email are silly:
1. The Design – by using images rather than text, the snazziness they were trying to achieve is completely taken away and the email is almost unreadable. Don’t they realize that 90% of browsers have images disabled? Can’t they design an email that is text-based that makes their point better and more effective than this?
2. The Special – they have an Easter Sale. I have also seen a Valentines Special and a Mother’s Day Sale. What the heck? Go to the Cell Phone Shop and check it out. You can buy cables, phones, batteries, chargers, covers, cases, holsters SIM cards, you name it. I buy those things when the old ones go. The old battery dies, I get a new one for a few bucks rather than $40 at Verizon. But I do NOT go to the Cell Phone Shop looking for a present for my mother.
Perhaps I am missing something. Perhaps these Easter Sales are working for them and the spam emails generate business. I’d be curious.
But I am befuddled. I suspect my “marketing email daughter” will have an appropriate comment here enlightening us all.
Well you asked me… and here is my response.
1. The Design- Yes, the design is nothing eye catching or great. It’s hard for me to tell if those images are broken or if you have to select that “please always allow images from xxx” first. Usually whenever you get the first email from a new company, the images will always not show until you put them on your safe senders list or allow the images like in Gmail. What they really should have done is put some alt text behind the images, so you could at least still read what the promo was all about. At least that one image tells you the Easter Sale is 80% off so you might click through. Also, text emails are just boring to look at and nobody wants to read them. The price you pay is maybe not being approved as a safe sender first and the receiver gets something like this instead.
2. The Special- Businesses do not use slogans like “Easter Sale” or “President’s Day Sale” or “Thanksgiving Sale” as a means for you to buy whatever they’re selling as gifts for the occasion. Sometimes they do but mostly not. It’s just a way to make a boring company jazz up their marketing with something new. They can stick Easter eggs and bunnies on their email just because they can and call it an “Easter Sale” to make a just because sale a little more intriguing.
But yes, I’d agree the overall email isn’t great but I’ll try to justify it just a little bit. 🙂