Thursday
Aug232007
Rebate trickery, again
Many consumer products, like cell phones, computers, and so on seem to come with some kind of a [tag]rebate[/tag]. Buy now and get $50 back, and so on. I don't quite understand the business or marketing intent of this scheme.
I just switched my whole kit and kaboodle cell phone business from Sprint to [tag]Cingular/AT&T[/tag]. And as encouragement I get $50 off on each of the phones, at least so they say.
What I actually get back
Is this a good business practice? I suppose their statisticians and accountants say it is, but there's a real cost in brand loyalty and good will.
And it's not just [tag]AT&T[/tag] - everyone does it: Staples, HP in my personal recent experience, but lots and lots of others.
So the deal is: [tag]advertise[/tag] and promote a great offer and then place as many speedbumps and obstacles in your customer's way and hope that by inconveniencing your customers you recoup some of it.
I just switched my whole kit and kaboodle cell phone business from Sprint to [tag]Cingular/AT&T[/tag]. And as encouragement I get $50 off on each of the phones, at least so they say.
What I actually get back
- A form that looks like a 1040 that has to be filled out in gory detail
- A requirement to cut out the [tag]UPC[/tag] bar code from the box
- Which I then have to place into an envelope, address and stamp and mail
- Weeks late, I receive a little orange debit card pre-loaded with $50...
- Which EXPIRES in 4 months
- Which needs to be 'activated', requiring a 10 minute phone call
- Which I then need to use when I purchase something. And who knows if that will work?
Is this a good business practice? I suppose their statisticians and accountants say it is, but there's a real cost in brand loyalty and good will.
And it's not just [tag]AT&T[/tag] - everyone does it: Staples, HP in my personal recent experience, but lots and lots of others.
So the deal is: [tag]advertise[/tag] and promote a great offer and then place as many speedbumps and obstacles in your customer's way and hope that by inconveniencing your customers you recoup some of it.
Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 4:44PM 
Reader Comments (2)
oh yeah, one of my pet peeves, too. Cingular was the first to do it to me. Only good news vs a whole lot of bad news about their rebate procedure is that you can activate on the web and you can take the card to the local Cingular store and cash the whole thing in to pay your bill. Not as good a procedure as they SHOULD make it (be cool to activate the card via your cell phone & then use the phone to make payments like the Mobil Speedpass) and certainly not a positive experience - bean counters win again.
Plus, you probably had to sit through at least one "up-sell" pitch in order to activate the card.
It's a form of price discrimination -- those who value their time more than their money pay the non-rebate price; others pay the lower price. Price discrimination isn't necessarily bad -- it's why we have student rates for the movies, etc. But that's what they're doing.