Internet Retailing At Christmas

Let me first apologise for mentioning Christmas while we're still in November. I take no pleasure in bringing forward a retailing period that's already appearing far too early, and is very occassionally considered a religious festival (for goodness sake, a man died today in a stampede at 5am in Walmart in New York).

As someone who does more and more of his shopping online, I usually don't mind if the retailer emails me regular updates of special offers, perhaps based on my previous shopping habits. But I've noticed it getting worse and worse of late. Last year, in the run-up to final postal deadlines to receive goods in time for Christmas, all the major retailers were sending me at least one email a day. This is overkill.

This year, as a recession looms (unless we're in it already), it's already getting silly. My inbox is daily filling up with mail advertising that day's offers. More often than not, they're not really targeted at me based on any previous purchasers. The retailers effectively see it as free non-spam. I've elected to receive their email and they're going to make sure I receive it.

Well let me tell them that they're walking a very fine line. There is no reason for them to send quite the quantity that they are, and if it significantly increases from the current level, I'll be unsubscribing. At that point - they've lost me.

Email is not a replacement for other forms of media. It's more intrusive, but it's also something I can control, when I turn on the radio or television, or buy a newspaper, there's little I can do to determine whether or not I see the ads (PVRs excepted). But I can and will take too much junk email into my own hands.

So HMV, Argos, WH Smith and even Amazon - you better watch out. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's getting fed up with the bombardment.