(Yes, I know that’s not the right spelling, but when thinking of a title for this blog post, the sometimes aggressive nature of the gorilla seemed to sum up the approach used by marketing departments.)
Everyone is used to getting marketing emails from websites – it’s nothing new. But it seems that in recent years, a lot of the larger companies have adopted a far more predatory approach to their customers. Add push notifications and text messages into the mix and new customers can face a barrage of hard-sell tactics.
Enshittification has been talked about more and more since the term was first coined in 2022 and Wikipedia describes it as a decline in platforms and services over time. Draw the customers in with great offers and service and then milk them dry. The problem is that when you drive your customers away and you’re struggling to attract new ones, then it’s left to squeeze every last penny from the ones who have stuck around.
Way(un)fair
Take this screenshot from my emails:
One or two emails from Wayfair every day, without fail, based on what I’ve been browsing for in their app – an app that also gives me at least one push notification every day too.
I’m sure this tactic works in the short term – give that customer a nudge back to the app and see if that sale can be made. But it’s such a short-sighted approach – eventually, fatigue sets in and the customer is bound to unsubscribe (as I will be doing after finishing this post). I can’t think of a single shop I want to receive multiple emails/notifications from each day. Even if I had unlimited wealth and space to put stuff, there’s only so many things I need or want, so I unsubscribe and turn off app notifications. So next time these places have a sale on or some good offers, they miss out on my custom, because they’ve driven me away.
Bad Bad Rhino
Wayfair are just one example of this crappy behaviour – Bad Rhino adopt similar tactics and a man only needs so much clothing. Spamming me daily trying to get me to buy more just isn’t going to work and again, leads to unsubscribes and app uninstalls. And when I’ve bought from them in the past, they’ve automatically re-added me to their marketing lists, unprompted.
“Why beat them when you can just join them?”
Of course, Wayfair and Bad Rhino are just two examples – there are many other companies that think it’s perfectly fine to bombard their customers daily. Amazon, Argos, eBay, AliExpress etc. all thought it was fine to keep pestering me until I eventually poke around their notifications and turn it all off. And that would probably be their argument: “If you don’t want to receive our marketing, then unsubscribe”, but we’ve all become accustomed to it being this way, because they all do it.
Plus as the big players dominate their respective markets, they feel no need to be particularly nice to their customers. Many people complain about how the likes of Amazon treat their staff and how they drive out smaller businesses, but they still buy from them, myself included, but where possible, I will try and find a comparable retailer to buy from now.
A better way
With my own online shop, I’ve always been loathe to do any kind of marketing – I would rather my customers be in control of what notifications they receive and so I just have a double opt-in email list and Facebook/Bluesky and if those notifications include information that a customer actually wants, then the subscriber numbers will go up steadily on their own, without the hard sell, and unsubscribe numbers will be low. Sure, a one-man site is hugely different to a multi-million pound corporation with shareholders to consider, but I don’t see the harm in treating customers properly.
Anyway, I realise I’m not saying anything new here, but it’s something that will always puzzle me – who wants customers buying something because they have been hassled into it? Surely your products and services should be good enough to want them coming back for more?
Right.. I’m off to unsubscribe from Wayfair…