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Rebates are Evil

June 24, 2005 By Joe Rawlinson

Along the same line as yesterday’s rebate horror story, I wanted to elaborate on why rebates are evil and offensive to your customers.

Rebates Involve Deceptive Pricing

Rebates hide the actual cost of your product. Most advertising based on rebates shows the price after rebate. When you go up to the checkout, you’ll be paying more up front. You then must hope you’ll get your rebate later.

Unfortunately, the company you purchased from and the rebate fulfillment company often lose your rebate. How convenient!

Rebates Are Extra Work

Customers have to do extra work to get their money back. They have already come to your store or ordered on your website. Isn’t that enough? Why make them do any more? Remember, you work for the customer. Not the other way around.

Rebates Put the Customer Last

The reason rebates are attractive to companies is that people will forget to submit the rebates and the company can hang on to the profits. This clearly tells everyone that the company wallet is more important than that of their customers.

Rebates Have Alternatives

Instead of putting the burden of rebate submissions on customers, give the discount at the time of purchase. Is that really so hard?

By eliminating rebates and giving the discount at the time of purchase, your customers will share the news of the great deal they got on your product. If you hang on to rebates, they might share their horror stories with everyone they know.

How do you want people talking about you? Remember, word of mouth has power.

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