baby photographer$$$
Now that I have a baby, I've discovered that there is a very powerful and pervasive baby industry that want to sell you a lot of stuff for a lot of money! From the baby formula samples we get by mail (and they got our address how again?) to the 1000$ strollers or super high tech diapers, it never ends.
My latest experience has been with baby photographers. Let's call them 'Wise Baby Photographers' to keep the real company name confidential. Here's how it goes:
- Somehow they call you because they know you had a baby (and they got our phone number how again?)
- They lure you with a no upfront fee and one free photo in any case offer (feels similar to my infinite meat experience). My wife couldn't resist :-)
- A photographer comes at no initial fee and you only pay to buy photos if you like them (that part makes sense).
- You ask them about the price and they say they'll tell you in person. I assumed that would be disclosed by the photographer who would show up at my house.
- They come and take pictures with all sorts of props (Boxing gloves, etc.). Some pictures ended up being cute, but only one of them was a keeper.
- You ask the photographer about the prices and he replies he does not know (!) but the sales rep who will come later will tell us all.
- The sales rep comes and proposes packages ranging from 200$ to 500$ which include very few photos. (eg: 12 originals 5*7 for 200$ , add 60$ and you get an 8*10 and some wallet size ones).
- Add 23$ shipping.
- If you don't order now with the rep, they will have to shred the photos the next day because of some 'privacy law' (unless you call the corporate center and ask them to keep the pictures on the Internet for order but then you miss out on some freebies!). Now you've seen the cute pictures so it feels like emotional blackmail.
- Conclusion: it's a very clever pressure-selling scheme.
2 comments:
Likely they got your address when the baby was born. Right after the birth new moms get a visit from a "welcome wagon" person at the hospital, who gives you a baggie of stuff and asks for your address.
When our son was born, we happily took the free stuff, but refused to give her our contact info. As a result, we haven't got any baby marketing crap in the mail. :-)
We had a really bad experience with this Canadian Baby Photographer business. It is totally a pressure selling technique. We were told that we need to make a decision to buy on the spot. I nicely declined to purchase(as it costs close to $400 for a package) and the demeanor of the sales rep quickly quickly changed to hostile. He threw us the picture that we could keep for free and stomped out the door. Oh man am I glad I didn't buy anything from him!
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