Retailers are doing a great job of making sure we don’t lose our receipts and bulking up their email marketing lists by offering to send us our receipts electronically. For the most part, I love this format as I’m self-employed and I don’t have five billion pieces of loose paper all over my desk. My email hates me.
Currently, I have oh — never mind. I’m not going to shame myself by telling you how many emails I have sitting in my inbox. It’s enough to make you go fetal and suck your thumb. I could take a week off and still not be caught up on email. One day, I’ll have the funds to hire a personal assistant to help me clean it all up. I really think that’s what all bloggers want for Christmas — someone to handle the admin.
I digress. As someone who is a little (a lot) friendly to the environment, I don’t shop very often, nor do I like having so much paper floating around. Electronic receipts are great. I add them to my spreadsheet and BOOM! have everything filed away in case I ever need them.
What’s the catch?
My coffee grinder finally gave up the ghost on Friday after 13 faithful years. (I know — that’s just coincidental, I hope.) My husband informed me of this bad news and after deciding he wasn’t going to be a cave man and use my mortar and pestle to pulverize the beans into something brewable, informed me we were heading to our local store where you buy gadgety kitchen things. As the clerk rang up our purchase, she asked if we’d like to have our receipt emailed to the email address she had on file.
This is where I get twitchy with email marketing.
I promptly received the email before picking up the bag to head out the door. Then I received another one later that day thanking me for my purchase. Yesterday I received another thank-you email. Today I have received two emails saying “thank-you” and did you hear about our sales?
Have you ever seen Elaine do the dance in Seinfeld? That’s what all of those emails do me. While she’s experiencing some form of deranged ecstasy, I’m cringing and convulsing, shouting nonsensical things in this world of overwhelming e-paper.
If, perchance, you’re reading this email in San Francisco and work for this store where I have to stop myself from doing the Meg Ryan “When Harry Met Sally” Big O in the diner scene every time I walk through the door, read an email, or receive a catalog, please rethink your email marketing practices. I don’t want to unsubscribe, because your email and catalogs are my pronography (Gratuitous intentional misspelling for the filters.)
