When running a retail store, marketing is extremely important if you want to get customers into your location.

That means running good sales and sending out information to your potential customers.

The employee in this story remembers when the marketing team created a very effective, but somewhat misleading, sale that made his job a nightmare for three days straight.

Let’s read all the details.

The advertisement that almost made me quit.

I used to work for the Toybox and they decided to have a special sale on the Woo video game system.

I’ll never forget walking into work and seeing the sale sign, just a few weeks before Black Friday, that said:

GET THE WOO FOR $99.99

There is no escape.

I immediately wanted to call in sick because I knew my day was about to be destroyed, but a manager had already seen me, so it was no use.

You see, with that sale, you could indeed get the Woo (which retailed at $249.99 at the time) for $99.99, but like all deals, you had to read the fine print.

Honestly, that sounds like it is still a pretty decent deal.

To get the Woo for $99.99, you had to purchase $150 of other items to make that deal happen. These other items were:

• (1) 20 pack of Toybox AA batteries.
• (1) Lame looking Olympics game with popular characters for 2 different franchises.
• (1) Specific gaming ottoman for the Woo.
• (4) items of your choice made by Gear Ape for the Woo system.

You paid the same, but you got a bunch of extra stuff (some of which you may not actually want).

It would ring up as $99 for the Woo, and $150 for the other items, meaning you ended up spending the regular cost of the Woo of $249.99

Did many people actually read all those details?

Of Course Not!

At least some people are calling ahead.

I barely made it to the electronics section where I worked before I heard my phone ringing, which as expected was someone asking, “Are you guys really selling the Woo for $99?!?!”

These were the easier part of my day because I got to let the customer down gently and because they’d already questioned the legitimacy of the sale.

They are really pushing this sale.

You see, Toybox had sent emails out about the deal with the subject line “GET THE WOO FOR $99.99” with the details inside the email.

Then came the Karen’s, male and female alike.

Person after person who’d thrown on their shoes and rushed to the store to get their hands on a $99 Woo, only to complain at me when I told them there was more to the sale and they needed to read the entire email.

I’ll never forget one particular grand-Karen though.

She is getting straight to the point.

Her: (walks right up to me, and ignores my greeting) “I want the Woo for $99.99!”

Me: (internal groan) “There’s more detail to the sale than that, you also have to purchase these other items to….”

Her: (cutting me off) “I don’t care about any of that and don’t want it, I just want the Woo for $99.99!”

Me: “I’m afraid I can’t do that. The entire detail of the sale was in the email and all the advertising.”

She thinks she can bully her way into getting an even better deal.

Her: “I just told you I don’t care about all that. The email said the Woo was $99.99 and you need to sell it to me like that.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but that’s not how the sale works.”

Her: “Then that’s false advertising. YOU are false advertising.”

Me: “It’s not false advertising. All the detail is there in black and white.”

At least he can pass her off to the manager.

Her: “Not it’s not! It’s false advertising, and I want to see a manager!”

This of course, was not the last time I had to call a manager over that day to deal with someone who starting whining about false advertising.

My manager did set her straight though, and of course she didn’t get a $99 Woo.

I wonder how many sales they actually made.

That sale was only 3 days long, but it was absolutely miserable.

I got called names by rude customers, got yelled at, and told myself I’d quit on the spot if they ever did another advertisement like that again.

Yes, there was an occasional parent who thought it was a good deal, but mostly it was just people who didn’t know how to read.

Also, for those of you about to come in and say “Well, I’d just buy the bundle and return all the other stuff, then keep my $99 Woo”, you can’t do that. Anything sold as a bundle/deal in my Toybox store also had to be returned as a bundle to keep people from doing just that.

While annoying, it sounds like the sale worked exactly as intended. It brought a lot of people into the store, many of whom I am sure made other purchases.

Check out the Reddit comments below to see what other people have to say about it.

Those entry level workers take all the blame.

It all makes sense now.

Here is a person who went through something similar.

A good manager would have done this.

This commenter says the advertising was misleading.

Not false advertising, but definitely misleading.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.