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Do something creepy like that to someone in the EU and you could well get a big fine! EDIT: this is a clear GDPR violation - you can't store and use user data

Do something creepy like that to someone in the EU and you could well get a big fine! EDIT: this is a clear GDPR violation - you can't store and use user data without a lawful basis. Marketing requires consent. Consent has to be given freely. EDIT: even if you worm out of the fine people hate getting unsolicited email like this so some non zero percentage of potential customers will avoid your business in the future.

2T1Qka0rEiPr 7y ago
I'm not sure I completely buy the "creepy" nature of this, or that everyone hates getting unsolicited emails - AFAIK this is a clear GDPR violation. In my previous company we rewrote our checkout flow for this reason. Capturing emails and offering certain consumers discounts via emails after a few hours etc. was a successful move (given that a certain % of people will drop due to price sensitivity) - but GDPR removing that choice is a clearly a good thing for the majority who drop for other reasons.
- luckylion 7y ago
  I can't remember which one, but a large shopping cart as a service provider does this (minus the discounts, or at least I didn't get them) for abandoned shopping carts where you've entered your email but didn't proceed to buy. Happened to me quite a few times because they only show shipping cost later on and they'd often be prohibitively expensive to ship to my country. As for creepy: I wouldn't consider these creepy (i.e. where I've entered my email), but maybe annoying. I had the creepy experience with Pavlok when I first looked into getting one. Browsed around on their site but didn't put one into the cart. Hours later I get an email from them. Turns out they were using some service that loads a beacon and tries to connect the browser via various third party services to an email address. That was creepy. I still ended up buying a Pavlok though, but at a later time.
  - oarsinsync 7y ago
    I think this is something that has become normalised and is no longer creepy, simply by virtue of how many stores do it. If I abandon a basket in a retail store, I don't expect a phone call about it hours later after I've left the store and gone home. The first time an online-store followed up with an email about my abandoned basket, I stopped using that store. Not naive enough to think other stores aren't tracking these metrics, but it's still creepy unless you've been subjected the obviousness of it a lot.
  - maneesh 7y ago
    Hey! I'm the founder of Pavlok. That's odd -- I don't think we have a beacon of any sort doing that. You might have opted in on our discount offer, or if you added it to cart and began checkout it would know your email. Very curious about your experience! Thanks.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      Hey Maneesh, this was back in early 2015 (I bought my first one that summer), and all I remember was that it used some kind of marketing service that I had subsequently looked up to see that functionality since I was pretty freaked out at the time. Started me on thinking about the trails I leave on the web ;) Good to see you're still around, I've enjoyed using my Pavlok quite a bit.
luckylion 7y ago
> Marketing requires consent. Consent has to be given freely. That would exclude Remarketing services from GDPR-compliance, wouldn't it? > even if you worm out of the fine people hate getting unsolicited email like this so some non zero percentage of potential customers will avoid your business in the future. I'm not so sure about this. It may well be true for you and me and our peers, but I don't believe that companies send out annoying "newsletters" and marketing emails just to drive away business, annoy consumers and wake up regulators. They do work for a certain audience.
- RaceWon 7y ago
  > They do work for a certain audience. As an old school mail order pro once said "there is no such thing as junk mail, just a poorly targeted list". If McLaren (to name one of my favorite companies and website) started spamming me with the latest low-down on their hypercars I'd be in heaven... Paul Graham Essays, Jay Abraham ebooks; same deal--pure bliss.
- dkersten 7y ago
  > > some non zero percentage of potential customers > It may well be true for you and me and our peers You and me and our peers are a non-zero percentage.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
paulcole 7y ago
As someone who helped run a US based e-commerce site for 5+ years (1.25M in sales), I couldn't care less about European customers and would welcome the opportunity to never deal with them again, so this sounds like a win win. Can't even tell you how many times I dealt with complaints about shipping costs, shipping times, customs costs, returns, etc. Whenever we'd get a complaint we'd just cancel the order and send them a link to a competitor. Good riddance.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  1.25M revenue in 5 years is nothing. I'd ask how those competitors you mentioned are doing but I think I already know the answer.
  - paulcole 7y ago
    That's per year and makes for a pretty good 3 person business. Good feedback though!
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  Have you tried stating on your website that you don't ship to the EU?

2T1Qka0rEiPr 7y ago

I'm not sure I completely buy the "creepy" nature of this, or that everyone hates getting unsolicited emails - AFAIK this is a clear GDPR violation. In my previous company we rewrote our checkout flow for this reason. Capturing emails and offering certain consumers discounts via emails after a few hours etc. was a successful move (given that a certain % of people will drop due to price sensitivity) - but GDPR removing that choice is a clearly a good thing for the majority who drop for other reasons.

luckylion 7y ago
I can't remember which one, but a large shopping cart as a service provider does this (minus the discounts, or at least I didn't get them) for abandoned shopping carts where you've entered your email but didn't proceed to buy. Happened to me quite a few times because they only show shipping cost later on and they'd often be prohibitively expensive to ship to my country. As for creepy: I wouldn't consider these creepy (i.e. where I've entered my email), but maybe annoying. I had the creepy experience with Pavlok when I first looked into getting one. Browsed around on their site but didn't put one into the cart. Hours later I get an email from them. Turns out they were using some service that loads a beacon and tries to connect the browser via various third party services to an email address. That was creepy. I still ended up buying a Pavlok though, but at a later time.
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  I think this is something that has become normalised and is no longer creepy, simply by virtue of how many stores do it. If I abandon a basket in a retail store, I don't expect a phone call about it hours later after I've left the store and gone home. The first time an online-store followed up with an email about my abandoned basket, I stopped using that store. Not naive enough to think other stores aren't tracking these metrics, but it's still creepy unless you've been subjected the obviousness of it a lot.
- maneesh 7y ago
  Hey! I'm the founder of Pavlok. That's odd -- I don't think we have a beacon of any sort doing that. You might have opted in on our discount offer, or if you added it to cart and began checkout it would know your email. Very curious about your experience! Thanks.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Hey Maneesh, this was back in early 2015 (I bought my first one that summer), and all I remember was that it used some kind of marketing service that I had subsequently looked up to see that functionality since I was pretty freaked out at the time. Started me on thinking about the trails I leave on the web ;) Good to see you're still around, I've enjoyed using my Pavlok quite a bit.

luckylion 7y ago

> Marketing requires consent. Consent has to be given freely. That would exclude Remarketing services from GDPR-compliance, wouldn't it? > even if you worm out of the fine people hate getting unsolicited email like this so some non zero percentage of potential customers will avoid your business in the future. I'm not so sure about this. It may well be true for you and me and our peers, but I don't believe that companies send out annoying "newsletters" and marketing emails just to drive away business, annoy consumers and wake up regulators. They do work for a certain audience.

RaceWon 7y ago
> They do work for a certain audience. As an old school mail order pro once said "there is no such thing as junk mail, just a poorly targeted list". If McLaren (to name one of my favorite companies and website) started spamming me with the latest low-down on their hypercars I'd be in heaven... Paul Graham Essays, Jay Abraham ebooks; same deal--pure bliss.
dkersten 7y ago
> > some non zero percentage of potential customers > It may well be true for you and me and our peers You and me and our peers are a non-zero percentage.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

paulcole 7y ago

As someone who helped run a US based e-commerce site for 5+ years (1.25M in sales), I couldn't care less about European customers and would welcome the opportunity to never deal with them again, so this sounds like a win win. Can't even tell you how many times I dealt with complaints about shipping costs, shipping times, customs costs, returns, etc. Whenever we'd get a complaint we'd just cancel the order and send them a link to a competitor. Good riddance.

SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
1.25M revenue in 5 years is nothing. I'd ask how those competitors you mentioned are doing but I think I already know the answer.
- paulcole 7y ago
  That's per year and makes for a pretty good 3 person business. Good feedback though!
hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
Have you tried stating on your website that you don't ship to the EU?