I saw an ad online which had this fabulous dress for plus sized women. The blurb offered special sales and bargain prices. Hey, I’m woman, I’m plus sized, I like a bargain and I am always on the lookout for some place new, so I click.
I get about five seconds of what could be promising items when a dark overly obscures the screen and prompts me to not just sign up for their free email specials, but to create an account. Uh, what? Why is it nearly every online merchant I want to simply browse through these days insists that I first sign up for their email list before I can see anything? There should at least be one or two preview pages that offer a taste of what’s available first before forcing potential buyers to a commitment.
This new method is especially annoying when after haven taken the plunge by creating the account and browsing around for fifteen minutes realize I’ve been sold a bill of goods even if it was for free. For instance, that dress in the ad which captured my attention in the first place? Oh they had it, just not plus sizes. The merchant had the dress in several colors and not one came in plus size. I played around with the available options just to see more. Let’s just say, no matter how I played with it, if there were fifty items available, perhaps five were in my size. What few items they did have in my size were not worth the commitment of having an account with them.
Another place advertising plus sized clothing turned out to cater to women who had young children. The adult clothing section was merely a subset to the clothing for tots and the plus sizes and even smaller subset to that.
And it’s not just clothing.
A furniture / home decor seller had a table that caught my eye. All I wanted know were the dimensions and the price. Again, before I could browse I had to create an account only to find out it was a designer place where even their “bargain” prices were out of my price range and the table in the ad could not be found.
So now for the third time this week, I had to figure out how to unsubscribe /opt out of these accounts because the merchant had nothing else of interest to me. These places are forcing a commitment of receiving, at minimum, weekly emails from them when I don’t know if they are even worth the energy of a weekly delete yet. I have more than enough emails flooding my inbox from places where I do make the occasional purchase. I do not need any more. I prefer it when a merchant does not offer the option to create an account until after I actually have a shopping cart and want to make a purchase. After all, if I make a purchase now I may want to come back again; then it makes sense. There are merchants that may have lost a potential sale from me because this practice of sign up now – look later, annoys me so. When I shop brick and mortar stores I do not have to give them any information just to look around, so what is with this nonsense online?
/mini vent
Raivenne-lations 
I basically boycott sites that do that. Hate it. But I did once look to see how close the nearest Meijer was to me, as they’d been recommended. They use the method that makes you enter a zip before they’ll even tell you anything, instead of just a map, and sign up. I did, and reinforced my own resolve to not do so again. They’re nowhere near me, but you can’t unsubscribe- you get a dead link. I wrote to their customer service, twice- no response. I get daily emails, sometimes more than that. I could scream. I wouldn’t shop there now if they were next door.
Good article, Raivenne; and I agree with you. I do NOT sign up for a site, regardless of what it appears they may have to offer. I’m with Q; I hate this type of what I deem false advertising. And, like you, I don’t get it. Why do they want to get a bunch of people on their email list who aren’t interested, or, like me, you, and Q, are pissed off at them for being sneaky and deceitful??
Raivenne… don’t git me started, girl!
Q & Charles, you’re preaching to the choir. Thanks to you both.