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Ask HN: Ethics of Offering Promotion for Users who Dump Competitor
I am weighing if this is a good business practice or not. For example, if a hypothetical start-up called ACME decided to waive the first year price for anyone who migrate their contents from a competitor site to the ACME site.
This seems like a very good way to make company enemies. But also a good way to gain market share.
Thoughts?
- cwan 17y agoHow is this unethical? A friend of mine who happens to also be a lawyer pointed out that it's impossible to "steal" a client. Clients act on their own accord and in their interests. Seeking to take market share by directly targeting competitors often just makes good business sense. I suspect it's extraordinarily rare for survival of a company that needs to seek the approval of its direct competitors anyway.
- joez 17y agoDepends on your market. I was recently at a talk from a Philip Morris executive who said the only way for the cigarette business to gain market share in its declining market was to win over consumers from competitors. Doesn't sound unethical but are you ready for any backlash? Can you win a price war?
- RobGR 17y agoI don't think it is unethical. If they came back and offered all the customer's who switched 2 years free to switch back, after you were out of pocket for serving them for a year free, would you feel unfairly treated ? Inducing people to break a contract seems to me to be going a step further, but even then I would say it depends on the details. Inducing someone to break an abusive cell phone or ISP contract doesn't bother me. Inducing someone to break a maintainance contract with an individual, say an independent plumber, would probably be wrong.