Web Exploitation: An Engagement Experience

@bcicero

I am getting married on July 25th. I knew going in that there would be immense amounts of planning, stress, and hopefully fun in the process leading up to this event. So far, all three of those expectations have turned out to be more than true. I never thought I would have to ever care so much about what color ribbon we would have to tie around an invitation, or whether up-lighting on pipe and drape creates a better room effect than back-lighting. But of all the hassles of planning a wedding, one overbearing annoyance eclipses them all. And the one piece of advice I can give to avoid it is this: Never give your e-mail address to anyone….ever.

If you are shopping for anything, and mention you are getting married, you will almost always be asked for this information. If it isn’t to help keep you “in the system”, it is to inform you that your order or purchase is ready for pickup, or any other myriad of excuses that seem innocent enough. My fiancée, as wonderful as she may be, made the mistake of being too open with her e-mail address at some of our vendors. She now receives literally hundreds of e-mails a day from every photography, flower, DJ, and dress maker along the East coast. This information is not only annoying, but useless, as we have already booked all of those services.

I suppose I should have realized this was going to happen, I mean, why wouldn’t a flower company give your e-mail address to other wedding related services? The other services get advertising and the flower company gets a kick back, seems like totally win-win. But these “benefits” are coming at the expense of the customer’s satisfaction, and can often have a repelling effect to their business and cause frustrated couples to recommend newly engaged couples’ money elsewhere.

The worst offender I’ve found in this seedy e-mail black market is David’s Bridal. One of the nieces in the family bought her junior bridesmaid’s dress there with my fiancée. The amount of e-mails from companies “associated” with David’s Bridal was staggering. And it turns out that many married couples we have talked to went through the same experience with David’s Bridal. Now all of us avoid companies that have advertised through David’s Bridal and give the same advice to anyone else we know planning to get married.

And this problem of quantity over qualityadvertising reaches far beyond the wedding circuit, as any tech user can attest to. I don’t know who the gullible people are that still think they are really going to win that iPod Touch , but I personally don’t know a single individual who sees a pop-up ad and thinks, “Wow, I really want to buy that now!” And while I understand that very few companies will turn away from some of the cheapest advertising possible, it just seems like bad business sense to me to support a practice that infuriates so many potential customers.

tagged as Advertising, bad business practices, Customer Service, scams, wedding