Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Come see the stupider side of Sears

Well, the stupider side of their marketing anyway ....

I bought a new washer and dryer from Sears last year, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Said washer and dryer didn't come into my possession until late February, but that, as they say, is a whole nother story. Since they were offering twelve months of no interest, no payment financing, I went ahead and opened a new Sears Mastercard. I made regular payments and brought that balance down to zero, and I've never used that account for anything else. In fact, I've never set foot in a Sears store since. Most importantly, I haven't bought any clothing from them since my Mom was dressing me in Toughskins.

So it was with great amusement that I opened up the little mailer that arrived in the mail yesterday. A special gift for a special customer it proclaims, then continues on - "Thank you for being one of our best apparel customers at Sears and sears.com." Blah blah etc, and here's two 20% off coupons for clothing only.

Hey, I appreciate the coupons. Not that I'd ever use them, but it's a nice gesture, I guess. But is it really that hard to do a little analysis of your customer list before you send out your promotions? I might have been equally as confused if they'd send me coupons that only were good for Craftsman tools, but at least those would have been useful.

In case a Sears marketing type reads this -- just to clarify, washer/dryer? NOT apparel.