Dark pattern or not, it's super effective - particularly when accompanied with a coupon ;)
Besides, the user is opting-in to receiving these emails. They don't have to provide an email address - so some are probably playing the game and seeing if they get a coupon or not.
As an aside - if the internet worked the way SV hipster brogrammers thought it should work, nobody would use it.
Yes, ads are crazy effective - you can ignore or block them, we don't care because enough people don't block them and are happy to click.
Yes, emails are crazy effective - you can ignore or opt-out or never opt-in, we don't care, you just cost us money if you're not engaged anyway so we'd rather you not be on our mailing list.
The site terms and conditions are displayed very publicaly and accessible to anyone who cares to read them.
By entering your email address you are opting-in for transaction related emails, including new order confirmations, shipment notifications, and yes cart reminders. It's spelled out for you.
It's the same for almost every ecommerce site.
That's different than marketing emails, which require a separate explicit opt-in - ie. the user has to go and type their email address into another form and click "Sign up".
It doesn't get any more transparent than that.
Don't call something a dark pattern just because you can't be bothered to understand what you're consenting to when using someone else's website and start entering information like your email address or more. That's entirely on you.
I am not sure what your conception of a dark pattern is, but the idea that adding something to a TOS means it can't be a dark pattern is simply false.
The whole concept of a dark pattern is about UX choices that lead people to agree to things that they don't actually want; it isn't about whether you break your TOS or not.
I am saying, I think that if you asked people point blank "do you want websites to email you reminders if you leave something in the cart?", most people (myself included) would say, "no, I don't want to get that email"
You can put whatever you want in the TOS, but it doesn't mean users like it, and a user agreeing to something doesn't mean they like all the things they are agreeing to.
Whether it is "on me" or not, it is still a dark pattern.
Also, as a user entering my email, I am not promising you that I will always accept email to that address from you. If you try to send me email and I reject it, that is 'on you' to deal with what that rejection does to your spam scores.
That's a one-time rejection, and is rightfully treated like an unsubscribe request. No harm done to either party - and the merchant is actually happy since we don't want to bother you. Guess what? Angry customers don't buy your products. Seems intuitive.
You might think people don't want these emails just because you don't want these emails. That's pretty biased.
Ask any ecommerce company - these emails, both marketing and transactional, are wanted by most people shopping on the site. The statistics simply prove your argument is false.
This is a common theme among techies. You don't like something... say ads... so you assume nobody should like them and they should be done away with entirely. That's an absurdly short view of the world.
I never said no one wants them; I was very careful to say that I considered it a dark pattern, not that it was a certain dark pattern.
Also, I don't think any amount of statistics is going to be able to show you if people truly want emails or ads... just because they increase sales doesn't mean people want them. Ads can be both effective and unwanted.
> I never said no one wants them; I was very careful to say that I considered it a dark pattern, not that it was a certain dark pattern.
OK fine, perhaps I interpreted your OP incorrectly. That's your prerogative, and you can do whatever you please.
> Also, I don't think any amount of statistics is going to be able to show you if people truly want emails or ads... just because they increase sales doesn't mean people want them. Ads can be both effective and unwanted.
True, but we're not just talking about increased sales.
We, and most companies that are serious about this stuff, track open rates, number of times the same person opened the same email, click rates, text link vs image link clicks, page dwell time after clicking through, session length and bounce rate, which pages they browse, which products they view, were the products related to the email that initiated the session, did they add something to their cart, how frequently this individual engages with our content, how long they were dormant, order frequency, etc.
Basically, we're interested in how "Engaged" you are with the site, brand(s), products and content. People who open every email, click on a bunch of links, hang out on the site for 20 minutes and add stuff to their cart are highly engaged, and are doing actions that indicate they like what they are seeing/receiving.
Remember, the people signing up for marketing emails are the most likely to be engaged with your brand/product/website. They've actively said, yes, please end me content from your company. If they lose interest some day, no problem, either our stats will show this and we'll unsubscribe them automatically, or they'll actively unsubscribe themselves.
Ads might be a different beast - however, you'd be surprised how many people click ads, and then buy products. It's immense. Clearly, the value provided there was getting the right product in front of them, matching what they were looking for, and offering it at a price that's attractive to that customer. In this scenario, I'd say it's wanted too - they got what they were looking for quickly and effectively. Everyone is happy in that scenario.
Everyone else can just run an ad blocker and choose not to subscribe to marketing emails. I do both myself... but I'd never assert these things were unwanted by a lot of people or ineffective.
Besides, the user is opting-in to receiving these emails. They don't have to provide an email address - so some are probably playing the game and seeing if they get a coupon or not.
As an aside - if the internet worked the way SV hipster brogrammers thought it should work, nobody would use it.
Yes, ads are crazy effective - you can ignore or block them, we don't care because enough people don't block them and are happy to click.
Yes, emails are crazy effective - you can ignore or opt-out or never opt-in, we don't care, you just cost us money if you're not engaged anyway so we'd rather you not be on our mailing list.