AI or just plain dumb?

I got an unsolicited email from hypedsports.com - if that's not bad enough, here's the special offer products shown in the email ...

You don't need AI to know that Alan is a male name ... 'nuff said?

Do these folk preach what they practice?

Let's ignore the fact that this was a spam email - I've looked at the syllabus for this Digital Marketing Institute's courses ... and [obviously] it doesn't include email marketing. I wonder if the rest of their training is based on their practice? 

Don't copy this awful practice

I was on the website of newchic.com and spotted a top I liked the look of that was reduced. So I put in the basket and went to checkout. 

However, I had already noticed that there was nothing on the pages I had visited that mentioned the cost of shipping/delivery … so I was already a bit suspicions. On the checkout page still no mention of a shipping cost. So I clicked on the ‘pay by PayPal’ link and was taken to Paypal where I logged in and was presented with this page …

Hmmm, I thought, this is the amount of money that I’m agreeing to pay out of my PayPal account – must be free shipping. But when I clicked on ‘continue’ I got this page. 

Wellll … I can only assume they know more than me – but isn’t it illegal to increase a price after the customer has agreed [with his bank] on how much to pay the seller? 

It is certainly a case of bait ‘n switch. 

It is certainly an example of what NOT to do on an e-commerce site. 

Even if I had liked the top more than I did, I would have cancelled the order. I say cancelled, but there wasn’t a ‘cancel order’ button. I just closed the page.

I will keep my eye on my PayPal account to make sure that newchic.com doesn’t steal any of my money.

Oh, and the cost of shipping was a bit steep for a top - though ironically had they been upfront about the total cost I might have been happy to pay nearly £20 for the item.