24 July 2011

Trying to understand Amazon

In this statement:

We are getting so immune (or just so inattentive) to in-your-face salesmanship that some inane turns of speech like the ubiquitous  "free gift" simply escape our internal censorship. Like in this case: if the delivery is free, how come it is included in the $9.78? Or is it free?

4 comments:

Pisa said...

The word "free" is an added bonus to make us feel good that it's the vendor who gets screwed, not us.

I'd like to put a big label on some product in a supermarket - "buy 3, get the 4th at double-price". I wonder how many people would automatically put 4 pieces in their carts.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Oh, compliance with officially-looking messages is part of our bloodstream, so I have no doubt your idea will be a wild success.

Dick Stanley said...

Heh. Parsing colloquial English (especially business English) is a prescription for madness, Mr. G.

My favorite in this vein was the Texas-Mexico border radio station that used to advertise "free, autographed photos of Jesus for just $9.99."

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Oh that's priceless, thanks!