Crackdown on ‘sneaky’ sales tactics will lead to ‘spiteful complaints’

I feel uneasy about the crackdown on so-called ‘sneaky’ tactics that encourage customers to make purchases on websites (Issue 655, page 7). I think it might easily lead to a surge in unjustified complaints by spiteful customers who end up hurting small businesses.

Members of my family run a website selling highly specialised goods. I don’t want to go into details, but the items are legal, collectible and rare. When they advertise these goods, they use all the marketing methods that the Competitions and Marketing Authority (CMA) says it wants customers to report as being potentially misleading (pictured).

For example, the site shows how many items have been sold in the past week. Many customers find this useful because they want to buy items that others also desire. As long as a website tells the truth, I don’t see how this could be considered as deceitful.

The CMA also suggests that stating how many items are left can put unnecessary pressure on customers. But again, this can be useful information that, in my experience, some customers ask for. The items that my family’s website sells are impossible to mass-produce, so their loyal customers demand to know how many are left in order to make a reasoned and rational purchasing decision.

Where the CMA might have some justification is in cracking down on ‘sale’ prices, where the more expensive price has been available for a short period of time, or to only a select group of customers. This is a common ruse to reduce a price and claim a large discount. But the other tactics count as useful customer information as much as marketing tactics. Regulators should therefore be wary of punishing small businesses that operate legally.