Amazon.cn, Dangdang.com; a big step back for email marketing.

Although there are more and more online market methods, the traditional email direct marketing is still remaining as a most used, also mostly one-way communication between brands and consumers. Recently, I came across an article written by a Chinese blogger who is interested in marketing. The headline is already very attractive – “The Awful Email Marketing of Amazon.cn & Dangdang.com”. In this article, the author described his “shocking” experience on using Joyo-Amazon(Joyo is a Chinese online B2C platform bought by Amazon) and Dangdang.com‘s email subscription system, also expressed his thoughts on what is a good email campaign system, which seems extremely basic to me -

1. Respect user’s rights to edit subscribe information and unsubscribe.

2. User friendly – easy to navigate, focus on function details.

Here is the translated article from ecvip.org:

Joyo-Amazon and Dangdang are the two biggest online B2C platforms in China. The competition between them, both on price and delivery cost, has  reached a white-hot state. Yesterday, for the first time I received Dangdang’s promotion information on my cell phone; it seems that the economic crisis has really given those businesses a tough time on sales! Regarding this, the more obvious and common reflect is the extremely frequent email newsletters I got from Joyo-Amazon and Dangdang.

Although there are more and more social media online marketing methods, the traditional email direct marketing is still maintaining as a one-way communication between merchants and consumers. EDM’s low cost, high efficiency and directional transmission are still getting attentions from merchants. In the meantime, email marketing is also a fundamental focus area for online marketers.

But, after looking at the two email systems Joyo-Amazon and Dangdang are using, you will find that although it looks simple, but to do a good email marketing campaign is not so easy.

Let’s look at Joyo-Amazon first. Although Amazon.com almost dominates the whole online shopping in US, but in China, Amazon’s life is not easy.

The automatic subscription e-mail’s subscription e-mail address is: i@ecvip.org
You received this email because you have registered on Joyo-Amazon and have shopping record. We guarantee to send information on Joyo-Amazon products, services, and promotions only. We respect and protect your privacy.
If you do not want to continue to receive an automatic subscription e-mail from Joyo-Amazon, please click on unsubscribe this kind of emails. If you want to subscribe more categories or update your mailing list, please click on update my e-mail subscription.

When I click on unsubscribe this kind of emails within the email, Joy-Amazon led  me to a very unfriendly 404 page which hasn’t been optimized.

Are you searching for something?
Sorry, the page you entered does not exist, please try another method!
Go to Joy-Amazon’s Homepage

In addition, I recently changed my registration email address on Joyo-Amazon, but in order to “update my email subscription” on Joyo-Amazon requires using original email address to login first; meanwhile, my original @gmail address is the default email inbox to receive emails from Joyo-Amazon. In other words, now my original email address has to unconditional receive email from Joyo-Amazon, and cannot unsubscribe! (Unless I change the current registration email address to the original one again in order to unsubscribe.)

After seeing the “amazing” Joyo-Amazon email marketing system, let’s look at the one dangdang.com is using, which made me even more disappointed.

But what should be affirmed is, in Dangdang’s email newsletter it allows receiver to enter email address to unsubscribe, this seems really considerate.

You receive this email is because this email address was used to register in dangdang.com, or it has shopping record on Dangdang. Dangdang will send you information on our products, promotions and services.
If you no longer wish to receive this information, you can enter your Email:___________  confirmed  |   unsubscribe
In case of any adjustment, product prices or promotions should according to the final webpage of Dangdang.
Visit Helping Center to raise your questions, you can also send by email or call Dangdang Customer Service Center: service@dangdang.com 400-711-6699

However, this is actually only a bluff, in the following pop-up subscription address (http://www.dangdang.com/dd2001/recommendmail/maillist.asp, pay attention to the 2001 in the URL, I wonder if this system was created in 2001, it seems Dangdang really wants to save human resources!), you still have to re-enter your email address again (today my focus is on email marketing, so I’ll just skip the part that this page only supports IE browser). At this new page, I tried to subscribe to book information on “Business Management” and “Computer / Network”, but on the next page, the confirmation information is for subscription on “Personal Finance | Economy”, I was completely shocked.

All right, if it was an error on subscription system error, I told myself just let it go. Maybe I was just dazed. I didn’t want to give up; once again I click on the “See Subscribed Information” button, the results turned out to be the same as the previous page – system did not tell me what kind of information I’ve subscribed in the end , then why created the extra buttons fool people?

After completely shocked by Joyo-Amazon and Dangdang, I’d like to do a conclusion on the situation.

1. A good email marketing system should be able to not only accurately send out information; the more important thing is to allow users to edit account information and to unsubscribe. A website which does not respect users’ right to select, it doesn’t matter how big the company is or how much money it is making (not to mention Joyo-Amazon and Dangdang are suffering from loss), it is just a gangster company. Sooner or later, the information it sends out will be marked as spam by users. To me, email newsletters which cannot be easily unsubscribed have been all marked as spam and directly filtered.

2. Any button on a website or within an email newsletter should has its own purpose and usage. Since the average Chinese netizens’ computer skill is really not very high, Joyo-Amazon and Dangdang’s email marketing campaign must have caused a lot of trouble for them.

3. The information on a website should be all connected and integrated. Although Joyo-Amazon allows me to change register email address, but it didn’t integrate it with my email subscription information.

4. I don’t think Joyo-Amazon and Dangdang can’t afford good product managers, but base on the email system, their attitude towards email marketing is very problematic. Perhaps a good email subscription system can’t help them to make profits, but I think the truth that “Detail Is the Key of Success” embodies more thoroughly on the internet than other sectors.

5. Some people said that the number 4 is not a good number, so I want to add a No.5. From the above comparison, we can see that Joyo-Amazon is a little bit better than Dangdang: settings can only be edited after login ensures and protects users rights, and the user control panel is also easier to navigate. As a person who frequently purchase books online (I am the VIP member of both sites), I’m more willing to order books from Joyo-Amazon.

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