Please, No Online Purchasing

I get so many messages in my email inbox every day for different websites and products, but I don’t really have time to check them, let alone buy anything from them. So when I was asked in my online marketing class if I had ever bought something from a email direct marketing campaign, I had to stop and think for a moment, and when that moment was up the answer was no.

At least not that I can remember.

The thing is, those junk emails back up in my inbox into the hundreds and envelop all the good emails I’m supposed to read (sorry I missed your Olympic opening ceremony party, Haylie). I hardly even look at the junk ones I want. Sometimes I browse through emails from Sephora, who let me know that I could pick up a birthday gift (free) in stores, Urban Outfitters, and Anthropologie. I like that I get a Sweet Tomatoes email, which comes with coupons, but since I get coupons mailed to my house and I don’t eat there frequently, I rarely open their emails.

I would much rather like to touch the physical object that is my purchase. I only order online if it is a must have, or something I can’t find elsewhere. My last online purchase was a grey jacket since I had been unable to find a grey jacket I liked in the physical world over several weekends of shopping. I would rather purchase a physical object than have the excitement that getting a package brings. I have limited funds that have to be spent carefully, and I weigh out all properties of an object right down to tactile impressions.

If I had seen the grey coat in the physical world before I bought it, I might not have since I don’t think it is thick enough. If I had seen the book on online guerrilla marketing that I purchased for the online marketing class, I probably would not have gotten it either because the paper is that of a child’s cheap coloring book.

So maybe I have never purchased anything from a direct email marketing campaign, but I have gone in store because an Anthropologie email promised the biggest sale of the season. It wasn’t. I didn’t buy anything even though I went to more than one physical Anthropologie store, but it got me in, and that’s probably what they were hoping for anyway.