Marketing gimmicks

Yesterday I bought a Shoe cabinet from an online furniture store. Normally I do not like to order any big item online and especially furntiture, but then I do not have much of time at hand to visit stores. They are a well known brand in my city and in the past I had ordered a book shelf from them which has been a good quality item, so I thought of going in for online. Absolutely no hassle, the process was smooth.

Initially I was only browsing and checking on multiple sites, I shortlisted one cabinet and parked it in my cart, in that time only I receive a call from their customer support if I was stuck in any process and need their help. This means they closely monitor transactions of even search. It felt a little spooky to me. Anyways after doing some comparsion I decided to go with the one I had shortlisted with them. I purchased and made payment online.

At the time of purchase there was a prompt that I will get a cashback of 900 Rs. After the purchase I did receive an email mentioning that as promised here is my 900 Rs cashback. There are no terms and conditions mentioned, so, on the face of it, looks like that there is a cashback of 900 Rs to be used on any purchase I make. I thought of trying it out if I could actually redeem the cashback. I picked up a product of 1500 Rs. Here is the catch, the 900 rs, cannot be redeemed in full. If I have to redeem the full 900 then I need to buy an item of 100 times the value, which is minimum of 9000 Rs. to redeem the 900 cashback. Of course I do not want to make unnecessary spend to use the cash back. I quit over there.

In that moment I again receive a phone call, this time a lady on the other side asked me why I left my transaction half way and if I needed any assistance. I told her the full story, but then she again repeated the same thing and I understood that it was AI assistant call. To be honest it sounded so real in the beginning that I actually started talking to her. I understood my answers had to be in Yes or No. There was nothing that she could help me with so I disconnected the call.

These are the new shopping experiences of today's time, everything driven by AI.

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