Sales On Vulcan: Infinite Savings In Infinite Combinations

(I work for a company that primarily sells its products online. We just had a 20% off sale that ran for a few days. It has been over for a week when I get this call.)

Me: “Hi, how can I help you?”

Customer: “You guys never run any sales! Why don’t you run any sales?”

Me: “Well, we just finished up a 20% off sale last week and run sales all the time. Did you miss our emails and advertising about that sale?”

Customer: “No, I saw them, but 20% is nothing!”

(I take a moment to see what she normally orders and it looks like she would have saved about $25.00 on her regular order. I, of course, let her know this and let her know about upcoming sales.)

Customer: “Wait… You’re saying I could have saved $25.00? Why didn’t you tell me that when you sent the email for the sale?”

Me: “We did, in fact. The email said it was a 20% off sale.”

Customer: “But how am I supposed to figure out how much that is?”

Me: “Well, an easy way would have been to estimate your normal order at $100. 20% of that would be $20, so you know that you would have saved more than $20 on the purchase. In this case, it would have been about $25.”

Customer: “You should just put exactly how much I am going to save in the email!”

Me: “We could, but as every order is different, the amount saved will also be different.”

Customer: “Well, how am I supposed to figure that out? I don’t have a computer to figure that out!”

Me: “Do you have a calculator?”

Customer: “I don’t have that, either!”

(That’s when she hung up in anger, and when I got up to make some coffee and shake my head.)

This story is part of our crazy-online-shoppers roundup!

Read the next crazy-online-shoppers roundup story!

Read the crazy-online-shoppers roundup!