Apple iPod Touch

In addition to the “cheap marketing” that I mentioned here, there’s also another form of marketing that I dislike called deceptive or dishonest marketing. Thats why I always tell myself “do unto others as you would have others do unto you”.

Being the geek that I was, I promptly hopped over to Sim Lim Square as soon as I arrived on Monday. I calculated that I’d have enough time to get an iPod Touch before my meeting with Nic and Hillary at Cafe Cartel. Although it sounds straight-forward, the whole buying experience was anything but.

The people at Ideal Technologies on the 6th floor were dishonest (or had intentions to mislead) right from the beginning. They quoted me S$470 for the iPod Touch but only told me that it didn’t include GST when I was paying. What??? Did they think (or silently prayed) that I wouldn’t find out???

Forgive me, but every other shop at Sim Lim and Funan has quoted me the nett prices for as long as I can remember.

Next, they offered to sell me a screen protector, iPod skin and travel charger bundle for S$49 - oddly, it was a special deal available only for that day. Well, lucky me …but I told them that I didn’t want them. Sensing my doubts, she started asking me why not and went to gather “evidence” of what would happen to my iPod Touch if I didn’t have those things (all made in China btw) - the apply pressure to customer technique.

Since I was late and this girl wasn’t going to let me go without buying the extras (and I wanted the sexy iPod soooo badly), I gave in. Sure enough, I popped by a shop on the way down and saw the same accessories selling for less than S$49.

So what were the people at Ideal Technologies thinking? They seem to be willing to forego all the future business from me for a measly S$550. Not only that, but I will go around telling about this experience and they’d lose those potential customers too. If they had been honest and nice, I probably would have gone back the next day to buy a docking station or something. But no, they were short-sighted!

This was the reason I told a certain someone (will tell more tomorrow) I met the following day that people are more jaded nowadays so it pays to be honest. With all the marketing BS hurled at us and everyone claiming to be the best, it’s a nice change if someone spoke humbly about their weaknesses too - at least I know they’d be telling the truth.

Btw, the “cheap marketing” attempt I mentioned at the beginning of my post is not the first. It seems a Malaysian blogger called Tenth Of March had wrote about the same attempt by Advertlets in the past. And if you’re wondering about the iPod Touch, I am 100% happy with that sexy thing. :)