Why We Don’t Digitally Target You, Spam Your Inbox or Charge Restocking Fees

September 24, 2019

It seems like in today’s online shopping world, if you even think about a product, it pops up on a digitally retargeted ad in your social media feeds or as a YouTube ad. While we see the benefit of it, we hate it. You can also add abandoned cart emails and restocking fees to our lists of dislikes. 

And while those are just a high-level list of things we don’t like, the principle behind them guides our marketing initiatives, which is basically the golden rule... Market to others as you would have them market to you

With that in mind, here are four things we don’t do and why. 

Regularly Scheduled Emails

The odds are you have signed up for a newsletter in the past thinking it would be helpful in giving you updates, coupons, sales notifications, etc., but before you have a chance to breathe let alone consider any of the company’s products, you’ve received 1-3 emails a day.  From there it’s just easier to delete the emails for awhile before deciding it just wasn’t worth it to give your email address away even if they promised “we’ll NEVER spam you.” 

At that point, there’s one thing left to do… unsubscribe. 

We’ve been there too. In fact, I’ve received 8 emails while writing this blog post that fits the above description. Three of them are from the same company. And that’s exactly why we don’t send out any regularly scheduled promotional emails.

We only want to email you when we have news worth emailing about. Sometimes that means you’ll get a couple newsletters in one month from us, and sometimes that means you don’t hear from us for a few months. 

But that’s why you can trust that when we send you an email, it will likely include something we think you should know about -- whether that’s new products we’re carrying or some kind of discount. 

Either way, if you get an email from us, we like to think there’s a pretty good reason for you to open it. 

Abandoned Cart Emails

Speaking of emails, we’re not big fans of leaving a website and minutes later receiving a message that says, “Looks like you forgot something. Why don’t you click here and go ahead and buy it.”

Since we don’t like those, we’re assuming most of our customers don’t like them either, so you won’t be receiving any emails like that from us.

Digitally Retargeted Advertising

This may be the most controversial one on the list. We know companies that do this, and there’s no denying its effectiveness. However, at its worst, digital retargeting can feel invasive and a way of pressuring you into making a purchase you weren’t ready to make. Simply put, we want you to buy from us because you want to, not because you felt like we nagged you into it.

Restocking Fees

Have you ever had an issue with a product you bought and needed to return it only to see some fine print that says something like, “Some of our products are subject to a restocking fee up to 25% of the product’s sale price?”

We think that’s ridiculous. Our belief is that if you return something to us in the same condition that it was sent to you, then we're not losing anything except for the shipping cost, which isn't refunded, and we’re upfront about that. 

Basically, we don’t think restocking fees should exist, so it’s something we’ll never do. 

TL;DR

We value your time and the fact that you spend your hard earned money with us. Out of respect for you, we are intentional in the way we communicate and contact our customer, subscribers, followers, fans, etc. With that mindset, we will always do our best not to annoy you with countless and needless emails and digital retargeting nor will we slap you with obscene restocking charges if you need to return a product.




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