In our everyday day, we come across several marketing strategies the purpose of which is to attract the potential customers to buy particular product. One of those strategies is the offer of some percentage off on the actual price. I have seen this strategies being used by local shopkeepers, well-known brands on their lots, online shopping apps and on individual products.
When I started consuming an online shopping app that keeps on offering seasons of discounts every now and then, I started doubting that there are no actual discounts during these seasons. Instead, only the amount of actual price is raised to demonstrate a discounted price. I feel like discounted price offers are merely a method of creating hype so that people rush to buy in FOMO.
Though I am not sure about the fakeness of price offers on the app yet we encountered the deception caused by local pizza brand.
It so happened that I went for shopping in s superstore. On the information counter there, I found the vouchers for discounts especially given to the store’s consumers. I asked the man on the counter if I could take one. He told me I could take as many as I wanted.
Each voucher had to different discount offers on it. It means one voucher could be used twice entailing two discounts on different items of the pizza shop. The offers were quite juicy. I wondered why there are that many bundles of vouchers are present on the shelf and people haven’t taken them yet. Perhaps, people go to the information counter less often, I thought. Anyways.......
I picked around 10 vouchers, thinking that I would given them to other families in the house so that they would also be benefitted. Though the brand is local yet famous, so I hoped to have a good taste from there.
The vouchers had a deadline printed on it which was 3 months away from the day I got the vouchers. Here I would like to mention that pizza is something that we eat once in a blue moon, so the vouchers remained with me until the deadline was only a few days away.
One day, my brother-in-law (say Amir) was going out. The pizza outlet had to be on his way. I told him to buy us the pizza as well as he could buy for his family as I had given two vouchers to them too.
The voucher offered Rs.900 discount on the purchase. According to the T&C , the discount was valid for Large and Jumbo size pizzas. Both of them had a price above 900. I had seen on the official website of the brand, large pizza was of Rs.1200. Accordingly, we were supposed to pay Rs.300 for this size.
I had told Amir how much it would cost expectedly. When he returned home, he was empty handed. He told that when he asked the service provider to redeem the voucher, he said that the voucher was valid for the pizza the price of which was Rs.2100. When Amir mentioned that he wanted to buy a large pizza, the service provider told him that the price of large pizza was Rs.2100. After redemption of the voucher, the pizza would cost him Rs.1200. That’s why Amir didn’t buy it.
On his return to home when he told the story I wondered how come there is that much surge in the price within a month. I search the official website again. There I found out that the actual price of large pizza was Rs.1200. Even the jumbo pizza was below Rs.2100.
Isn't this fraudulent behavior? Anyone who redeemed the voucher without checking the price beforehand would have fallen victim to purchasing the product at its regular price, thinking they were getting a discount offer. This way they would have a bigger sale.
Nevertheless, I believe that earning money via such frauds has a negative impact on the business. The exposure of such deception destroys the trust of the customers and eventually they find an alternative.
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The post is my participation for Hl-featured contest prompt.
The image is captured by me via my mobile camera
