I’ve been planning a fairly large purchase from a retailer whose annual “one day sale” is coming up. As the name suggests, they run some big discounts on that day only. Since you can’t find out exactly what the discounts will be in advance, you have to call them or visit the website during that morning to find out what’s on sale and how much you’ll save. It’s well-publicized, so customers and the sales reps both know that it makes sense to wait until the sale date before purchasing. Personally, I’m fine with that: I made a little reminder and will call them accordingly.  But I wonder how many customers actually remember to check in on the designated sale date, versus those who forget about it and end up making the purchase elsewhere.

Rather than put the onus on customers to visit the website or stop in on the day of the sale, I’d love to see the retailer offer a reminder service. This doesn’t have to be very fancy. You would just enter your email address or mobile number, and they would automatically send an email or text message right after the sale begins. To make this even more useful, they could let customers enter a short note to be sent at that time, like “Check out the sale pricing on leather sofas.” Assuming that retailers do in fact want to maximize sales during these special events, an automated reminder service seems like a no-brainer.