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.