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Should we be allowed rainchecks?
I have seen a lot of LEB deals become obsolete WAY before the 30 day mark because they were all out of stock, and then the company offers some kind of upsell as an incentive. Now, I'm not trying to say any company is trying to pull a fast one, but it does sometimes irk me. I see a deal and I think "hmm, seems like a good deal. I think I'll snag it tomorrow because I gotta get back to ____ right now" and then the next day it's gone. Even though it hasn't been 30 days yet. And then I notice in the comments that the company is offering a less attractive plan at a similar cost. What do you guys think? Am I just being snobish?
Btw, I'm not talking about LET, because it isn't governed by the whole "deal must be at least 30 days" caveat, but LEB has some rules, so that's why I feel duped.
Comments
LEB has a rule the promotion must be valid for 30 days?
What if the provider is out of stock?
A lot of discounts even in the real world don't allow for rain checks.
Were more than happy for people to signup and reserve a spot if we have limited stock.
People manipulate stock to make it look like they've sold out, when they haven't their quite small.
Well, we only put one big server for overzold which we were doing only for LET (listing on LEB was not our idea...) as a joke because were quite pissed with the claims that cant be done, had no idea people will like it so much, after all, was bucking the trend here, we were expecting everyone to jump in the hate prometeus bandwagon, put one server just to have something if someone crazy enough is signing, but we were sold out in a day I think had to put 2 more servers to serve everyone which wanted to join. Until recently we had stock on that and now again some slots.
For the Q2 poll i agree we had to scrap something as the cloud was not ready and we were out of stock on everything, therefore had to offer some thank you offer of sorts, even tho was just some 30-40 slots. Guilty as charged there, but it was not a stunt to push sales, on the contrary, was a serious KVM offer with a discount to thank people that voted for us, even when we had basically no stock.
As for our loyal and honest customers, most of you know that if you need something, we make it happen one way or the other, bring back dead promos, even offer the famous 50 cents from time to time (in case of a valid reason and for really nice people), not to mention double the traffic on that and even disk if needed without extra charge.
Hmm, maybe I'm interpreting the rules wrong?
From LEB (truncated):
I guess it can mean that they will just post it once per 30 days. However, a lot (maybe I can say most) offers on LEB list on their description that the offer is for the month of ____, or that it's valid for a month. But they get sold out in about a weeks time. So in essence, those are the offers my post is referring to.
@concerto49:
Yea, I know. The raincheck reference in the title was more of a joke/reference to the olden times just to summarize what the post was about. It wasn't really a suggestion. I actually posted on LEB under a certain company's post, but it's unfair to that company, so I posted here. I'm paraphrasing what I said to them on there:
Just like you (the hosting company) allocate your slots based on demand, I think you (and the whole community I think) would benefit if you also allocated enough servers to meet a 30 day demand (or however many days your offer is supposed to be valid for). I'm sure you know the numbers better than I do, but lets say that a deal got sold out in 7 days. So lets say at the time you posted this deal, you had 3 times as many servers available for the deal instead. Then that means it would take 21 (3 x 7) days for you to run out of stock. This would be closer to the 30 day mark than current. I would say 4, but I understand there needs to be a cushion for error, so 3 times as many would have fit the market demand perfectly.
A new company that is just starting out would probably not have those numbers available at hand, but a company that has listed on LEB before should have a general estimate. I'm just wondering if it would be a good idea to do some more analysis on those numbers to help everyone (the customers, the hosting providers, and anyone who also wants to get into the business).
@Reece:
That's actually pretty much exactly like how a raincheck works. Kudos to your company man, you actually do offer rainchecks :-D. I didn't really expect that. However, I haven't seen your company mentioned on LEB, just on LET (and I have been mulling over it and considering getting a vps from you guys)
@Maounique:
I'm don't actually know what you're referring to but I guess it's a response to what Reece said. As for me, I am not trying to single any company out, nor am I accusing any company of doing any stunts to push sales. However, I'm just trying to nip this in the bud before companies DO in fact realize that the community is complacent, and then they do start pulling stunts like that deliberately. Like I said earlier, if it's a small company, or if it's an experiment, that's fine. But I think legitimate companies with some history should know better. I think we should all be nice and understanding towards each other, but I don't want that to mean we will give companies a free pass if they start to pull underhanded tactics. I like Reece's way of it, where if you don't have stock, you can still reserve a spot for when the stock comes back. That's an example of a company rectifying the situation so as to eliminate any suspicion of underhandedness.
Thanks for all the replies from hosting providers. I would like to also hear some replies from some subscribers.
There is also another point.
Offers get posted on LEB after one month or more since they were submitted. It may well be that no stock remains by then if it is posted some other place too (included, but not limited to LET).
Most providers use certain deals to attract and lure potential customers to purchase their higher end, more profitable offers. Very typical of the competitive hosting market. Some providers will offer a raincheck or in our case, place the customer on a notification list soon as the special becomes available again.
@Maounique
Yes, I understand that. I guess I was just noticing a trend of stocks getting sold out suspiciously fast.
@volumedrive
Yes, I understand basic marketing principles, and of course upsell to your hearts desire, but when someone upsells right after depleting their stock suspiciously fast, then that's called a bait and switch. I am not accusing anyone, I'm just saying that there needs to be a mechanism in place to prevent such a practice. I don't have any example of a bait and switch done by anyone on these boards, I'm just saying that with the way everything is set up right now, it wouldn't be that hard to pull such a scheme.