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> Imagine you want to buy something: You pick it, add it to your cart, and go through the entire check out process. In the final step, you see that the company
by thomascgalvin 8y ago
> Imagine you want to buy something: You pick it, add it to your cart, and go through the entire check out process. In the final step, you see that the company has added an extra cost that was not mentioned on previous web pages.
This drives me insane. I was recently about to purchase something from theMysterious Package Company, which is kind of a "story by mail" thing. They send you notes and letters and trinkets and such, which come together to tell a story.
The product I was interested in was like $85, which is steep but I really like the property it's based on, and I figured that since these were physical items that had to be physically mailed, the cost was probably justified.
Until I got to the last page and they threw in an additional $25 shipping fee. Fuck that noise. And they kept spamming me with "you forgot to finish checking out!" emails for the next week.
- notatoad 8y agothat's not a "dark pattern", there's always a shipping fee. it's how literally every e-commerce site works. have you ever used the internet before? if you decided to assume that shipping would be free despite no evidence to suggest it would be, that's on you.
- tracker1 8y agoIn a lot of these cases the shipping itself is a large profit center. As actual shipping is usually lower.
- notatoad 8y ago1. Is there any evidence to suggest that, it is this just general internet paranoia that's every company everywhere is a scam? 2. That doesn't contradict anything I said above.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- radley 8y agoSounds like it's really $100 w/ $10 shipping and then they A/B tested the difference to find the sweet spot for sign-ups.
- robert_tweed 8y agoYou may be interested to know that both of those are illegal in the EU. Shipping costs are a special case unless the price is clearly disproportionate. But under the CCR in the UK (I forget the EU directive it's based on) if things are automatically added to your basket, you are entitled to a refund and to keep the item. The email thing is covered by the GDPR, but was covered by UK law already. John Lewis (a UK retailer) lost a test case for exactly what you described: https://news.sky.com/story/spammer-to-pay-damages-after-court-victory-10402884 https://news.sky.com/story/spammer-to-pay-damages-after-cour...
- test6554 8y agoI would never be comfortable getting a refund and keeping the item. Cause the cost just gets passed onto the next person. I would return the item if I got a refund. I either agree to all of your terms and do business with you or I don't agree to all of them and you lose my business.
- test6554 8y agoOmaha Steaks is the king of hidden shipping fees. Cause they have these $49.99 and $99.99 packages, but shipping costs can easily exceed $20. I cut them a little slack because they ship frozen goods, but man!