An Open Letter to Online Merchants
Dear People Who Sell Me Stuff:
It’s okay for you to send me email about new products, sales, promotions, etc., particularly if I asked to be on your mailing list. However, once you send me one announcement of a sale or discount, it’s not okay to send me three to five more messages referencing the first announcement with Subject: lines like “In case you missed this!” I read it the first time, I promise. If I didn’t want to read your email I’d take myself off your list. I don’t need to be told again and again about the same thing, and I don’t need to be “reminded” about the impending cessation of the sale, discount, whatever. It’s annoying and, frankly, somewhat insulting.
Got it? Once is enough. Simple, eh?
kthxbai–
–Adam
Posted: July 14th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments
Comment from adam
Time July 14, 2010 at 12:20 pm
It’s a good one. I love urbandictionary.com’s observation about it: “‘kthxbye’ is the pinnacle of English’s advancement, shortening ‘All correct, Thank you, God be with you.’ into seven lowercase letters. Humanity is doomed.”
Comment from cassiel
Time July 14, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Even worse: an online vendor which accepts an order, does nothing for three months, reports back that it’s unable to get hold of any stock after all, and then routinely spams you with unrelated special offers every two weeks for the next year. Play.com, I’m looking at you.
Comment from cassiel
Time July 14, 2010 at 12:23 pm
…or in the spirit of the thread: Play.com: kthxfkoff.
Comment from adam
Time July 14, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Amazon.com does the “oh, we can’t get that after all” trick now and then. It seems that if something is listed as “Usually ships in N weeks” at the time of order, it will actually never ship.
Comment from Jesse
Time July 14, 2010 at 12:09 pm
“kthxbai” is my new favorite closing salutation.