Let’s say you’re creating an account with an online retailer. As part of the sign-up process, they give you the option to receive periodic emails with special offers and the like. If you opt-in to these messages, how many emails would you expect to get each week?

Absent any other data points, I would guess that a typical email subscription yields one or two emails a week. That’s enough for the sender to remain front of mind, but not so many that it gets annoying. Yet a well-known retailer I came across sent a message every single day, for a total of seven emails a week. This went from irritating to infuriating rather quickly, and coupled with a broken unsubscribe system, really hurt my perception of their brand.

Avoiding this situation is easy. First, set your email frequency to match what people are expecting. Once a week is fine, while once a day clearly isn’t. Second, if there’s some compelling business reason why you need to email people more often, then tell them about the email frequency before they sign up, and make it easy to switch to weekly after that. While you might not get as many raw opportunities to deliver your message this way, there’s a much greater chance that people will actually be paying attention — instead of just sending your emails right to the trash.

Over the weekend, I watched a few episodes of a fairly new TV show called “The Middle”. It’s a sitcom that follows the life of a middle class family, and bears a striking resemblance to “Malcolm in the Middle”, which aired in the 1990s.

As we sped through a few episodes that had accumulated on the TiVo, my wife pointed out something very interesting. “The Middle” is precisely the kind of show that could have a laugh track, but thankfully, it doesn’t. “Raising Hope” is the same way. Yet there are still shows like “The Big Bang Theory” that are crippled by a laugh track, which seems like a big mistake for today’s viewing audiences.

I doubt that anybody out there is saying “I wish there were more shows with a laugh track”, but there are lots of people who simply won’t watch a show that has one. The laugh track is a polarizing attribute that scares away a lot of viewers. But it doesn’t make those who can tolerate it any more likely to tune in. So when you’re faced with the choice of including a sort-of-maybe-like-it or totally-completely-hate-it attribute like a laugh track, the right choice is probably to leave it out.

I’m a huge fan of a particular type of tortilla chip. It’s an organic blue chip, with just the right amount of sea salt sprinkled throughout the bag. For many months, I was able to buy the product consistently from the same retailer. But lately, something wonky has happened with the pricing.

In a matter of months, the price for my favorite blue chips has increased about 50%. Yet the same product in a “no salt” version has only gone up about 15%, creating a substantial pricing disparity. Does a bit of sea salt really cost that much? Of course not. But I don’t think supply and demand explains it, either.

Regardless of what’s causing this pricing disparity, common sense dictates that similar items ought to be priced in a similar way. If you forget to perform this simple reality check, you create an awkward scenario that forces customers to think twice about whether any of your pricing makes sense. And by eroding that trust, even the most loyal shoppers become more price-conscious. So while the market may allow you to charge inexplicably high prices for a particular product variant for a limited period of time, just remember that the long-term costs may far outweigh the short-term benefits of that approach.

When you buy a jacket, sweater, or pair of pants, it’s customary to find a little packet attached with replacement buttons and thread. I imagine that clothing manufacturers do this because they know it’s really hard for customers to locate these supplies later. Plus, the practice probably costs them next to nothing.

But why is clothing the only category deserving of this treatment? Wouldn’t it be great if furniture included replacement cushions, or if electronic devices shipped with spare power supplies? Obviously, the difference here is that parts for soft goods tend to be inexpensive, while components for hard goods are usually quite pricey.

Of course, nobody said that the replacement parts need to be free. As a rule of thumb, manufacturers should toss in the extra parts at no charge when the cost of doing so is nominal. And if the cost of those components is substantial, then make them available as an extra-cost option that customers can elect during the initial purchase.

By giving customers ready access to replacement parts via a standard or optional bundle, people who keep the product for an extended period will spend less time hunting for obscure parts — and more time telling others about how thoughtful the manufacturer was to include those items from the start.

Compared to previous years, it seems like this spring and summer have been plagued by an unusually large number of rain delays at the major airports. Yet with all the delays impacting passenger airlines, I haven’t seen any news about corresponding delays at UPS, FedEx or other air-based shipping companies.

Passenger airlines generally share the same airports as commercial package delivery carriers. Both groups fly fairly large planes. So why are the shipping companies almost always flying on days that every passenger flight is grounded?

I suspect there are several factors at play. Maybe passenger airlines are scared of the new rules that penalize them for stranding passengers on the runway, so they’d rather just cancel or delay the flights at the slightest hint of bad weather. Perhaps companies like UPS and FedEx have more redundancy in their fleets, so that minor delays at one airport don’t stack up into nationwide stoppages. Either way, the shipping guys are doing something right, and it would probably serve the passenger airlines well to implement similar procedures in their own operations.

Many of the pharmacies in my area have begun carrying grocery items. In some cases, it’s a half-hearted effort, focusing on the types of items you’d find in a convenience store. In other cases, the stores have tried to include fresh foods and other staples of a real grocery store. But something about all of these efforts falls short.

As I think about it, the pharmacies aren’t giving people much of a reason to buy groceries there. Sure, they added a new product category, and it might be convenient to pick up some grocery items if you’re already in the store for prescriptions or other personal care products. But people are creatures of habit, and it takes more than just a few shelves of food items to make shoppers change their buying patterns.

What’s the solution? Go beyond the “me too” approach, and add a cohesive message that ties together all of the items in the new product category. For instance, maybe your prices are 20% lower than typical grocery stores in the area, or maybe your research shows that shoppers can save two hours a month by picking up staple food items at the same time they get their prescriptions. Or perhaps you’ve got a big selection of house-brand organic foods. Either way, if you can get people excited about the new product category, there’s a much better chance that they’ll begin to associate that category with your store and give the new offerings a try.

When it comes to product packaging, consumers tend to be “glass is half empty” types. At one time or another, nearly everyone has complained about opening a new bag or container, and finding that a good portion of the space inside is occupied by air. Sure, most products are sold by weight, but it still feels wrong to buy something and find out that the package isn’t filled to the top with the desired product.

Aside from disappointing customers after they’ve taken the product home, there’s a special situation that can hurt in-store sales, too. What am I referring to? The combination of a transparent package with a product that tends to settle during shipment, or a package that’s purposely too big to give it more visual presence in the store. In this situation, shoppers can immediately see if the contents seem skimpy by simply looking through the plastic, which can have a very real impact on sales.

The solution is quite simple: unless you feel really good about how much of the package your product normally takes up, then don’t include a see-through window. Otherwise, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage compared to competing products that are sold in opaque containers, even when there’s just as much air in a competitor’s packaging.

When you watch an older movie, or even some newer ones, you may see a fantastical depiction of air travel. Among the extraordinary luxuries that were once offered, passengers could just walk directly off the plane after it arrived, aided only by a set of portable stairs. I suppose this actually happened at some point in time — probably when I was too young to remember. But a recent flying experience made me wish for a return to these simpler times.

You see, I had already spent many hours sitting in the departure airport due to “weather delays”. When I finally arrived at the destination, I was forced to sit in the plane for another 60 minutes, since the airport didn’t have enough gates to deal with all the backed-up flights. It was a beautiful day outside, and I’m sure none of the passengers would have minded if they pulled the plane up to the nearest gate, and then let us walk across the tarmac and into the terminal. However, this option was never presented to us.

Now, I don’t know how many airports still have rolling staircases on hand. But when the equipment is available, it makes sense to use it. Just adopt a policy to use the rolling stairs whenever a plane would otherwise be stuck for more than 15 minutes waiting for a gate, assuming the weather is tolerable. That way, passengers would be spared the frustration of being trapped on the plane for an extended period, and airlines would be able to put the plane back in service without further delays.

Last week, I tried to schedule a routine doctor’s appointment. This was easier said than done. In particular, I ran into the following obstacles:

– The office only takes appointments up to six months in advance, so you can’t just book next year’s visit when you finish the current visit.

– The front office staff can’t set appointments. You have to speak with the specific doctor or their nurse.

– There’s no way to just call and talk directly to the person with appointment-setting power. You have to leave a message and wait up to three days for a call back.

I have no idea why a doctor’s office would make such a simple process so obtuse and difficult. In my case, it took three phone calls and about a week in total to get an appointment scheduled — and I can only imagine how much time is wasted when you multiply this across all of the patients that they serve.

A few weeks ago, I heard that one of my favorite retailers was planning to introduce a customer loyalty program. They didn’t provide any details at the time, but I recently came across a page on their website that explains how the loyalty program works.

In short, you can qualify for the loyalty program benefits by doing one of two things:

– Spend more than $XYZ per month, or

– Place multiple orders every month, regardless of total dollar volume.

The first option makes sense to me, since you want to reward customers who buy a lot of products from you. However, the second option is counterintuitive, since it encourages people who don’t spend a ton of money to split up their purchases into more transactions than necessary. This costs the customer and the retailer more time and money.

A better approach is to define loyalty based on total spending amounts over time (like in the first option above), and then offer a second qualifying method for people who are regular customers but simply don’t have a need to spend that much. For instance, you could allow someone to qualify if they place at least three orders during a six month period. That way, you’re encouraging people to shop with you regularly, without driving them towards buying patterns that waste their time and yours.