Comic Transcript
CUSTOMER: What is the point of offering a rebate when you make it so hard to collect on it?
ALEX: Well, that’s pretty much the point right there.
ALEX: See, a customer walks into a store and sees a piece of software that normally sells for $200. But there’s a coupon on the box that says you can mail in a rebate for $30. “That’s 15% off the price,” the customer says, and buys it. But there are two things that most customers don’t know…
ALEX: First, we bumped up the price by 15% to begin with, to compensate for a potential loss in revenue. Second, we assume that most people will look at the steps involve din verifying the rebate, shrug their shoulder,s and say “it’s just not worth doing all this to get a lousy $30.” So we wind up coming out AHEAD $30 per sale.
CUSTOMER: So you do all this on purpose.
ALEX: The Marketing division calls it “Operation: Gratuity.”