I DO want email updates from online stores. I DO. So unsubscribing is not the option that would be helpful here. But I can hardly STAND this:
Monday: “Three day sale starts today!!”
Tuesday: “Three day sale still going on!!”
Wednesday: “Ending today! Don’t forget about our three day sale!!”
later Wednesday: “Last chance for our three day sale!!”
still later Wednesday: “ONLY HOURS LEFT!! HURRY!!”
Thursday: “By popular request: sale extended an extra day!!”
later Thursday: “Sale is almost over! Don’t miss out!”
Friday: “Long weekend sale starts today!!”
Oh, no kidding! E-mail marketing is very easy to overdo. It can be handy for both sides, but lordy, back off a little.
Yup, I’m being driven crazy by the same thing. To the extent that I unsubscribed from the worst of them. Contemplating just unsubscribing from all of them! If they sent me one every couple of weeks I’d probably click over and check it out. When they send one a day, I just stop reading them entirely!
I blame The Children’s Place for this. They are the worst! But sometimes their sales are SO GOOD… I need to know about them! AND sometimes they send coupons. But GAH.
I like the “super top secret lunch-time sale” ads, myself. Or not so much…
-Dr. Liz (Fiona the dog only cares about sales if it involves chew toys…)
I wish I could remember which vendor it was but I went to unsubscribe and I got a mile long option of unsubscribing from like 30 different types of their promotions. *lightbulb* THAT’S why I’m so annoyed by you. I just unsubd from all of them.
Bath & Body Works is pretty bad about this too, but I found you can change the frequency in one of their “unsubscribe” links. That was very helpful. Once I bought my sister a Barnes & Noble e-gift card that got deleted because she thought it was just more spam from them! (Well, not totally deleted, just routed to the trash can before I finally had to tell her what I got her so she would look for it.)
I totally hear you, sister! I was stupid enough to subscribe and use my regular email for all my shopping, so I am inundated! But I’m all about the coupons/codes, so I’m not willing to get rid of it all either. Ugh.
I like the idea of a frequency option. Interesting.
The thing is, it works. And when something works, the company is going to do it over and over until it stops working.
I always feel like that’s my “charge” for getting whatever benefit I get from being on that email list. Whether I get a newsletter or a quote of the day or regular discounts, I am “paying” for it by getting the marketing messages. If the irritation of the marketing messages outweighs the benefit, that’s when I unsubscribe.
But I also think it’s poor marketing for a company to do too many sales. One right after the other is poor form. Not only is it irritating to the recipient, but it can also train customers to never respond to an offer because the next one is right around the corner.
My favorite is from some store that is forever emailing me that it’s the last day of their sale… and I’ve never heard about the first day. LIke clockwork, every two weeks I get the notice “End of our Two week sale! Don’t miss out on these once in a lifetime opportunities!” Perhaps they think I am a fruitfly…
Old Navy?
I hear you!
Macy’s does this to me. I want to cut up my credit card and shove it up their…
Also? Sometimes I get smart and make them all go to a default folder (skipping the inbox) so if I feel like checking I can, without the inbox overwhelmingness of it all.
You could see if your e-mail box has some way to filter the ads so you could still see them but perhaps not so often…
I love this. I completely, totally feel the same way.
(For me, Kohls, New York & Co. and Lands’ End are the worst in this area.)
Thanks for the laugh!!
~ Wendi
Old. Navy.
Bah. I do want to know, I do. I just… once I already know, I KNOW, you know? I don’t need to know again. It’s KNOWN.
Yes! This is why I use my old hotmail account for shopping. I go in there every few days and do a mass deleting of the things I don’t need.
I generally don’t care about sales if I’m not currently looking for something, you know?
Let me guess?! Lands End. That who I get emails from that are EXACTLY like that…..
Tell them. Contact their community managers or customer service reps and tell them.
I send newsletters. It’s the kind of feedback I’d kill for.
You can definitely change the frequency on most of the online stores’ emails. Just click on unsubscribe and when they ask for your email, they usually have several checkboxes where you can choose to get the emails only weekly, monthly, etc. I just unsubscribed for a bunch of things and that option kept coming up over and over again.