What do we call sleazy Chinese products?

[Kelby]

Hey folks! Maybe I just like talking about this thing too much, but I wanted to pick everyone's brains based off of this topic ( http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/43765-another-blogger-setting-out-to-learn-chinese-in-3-months/ ).

We talked about a guy challenging himself to learn fluent Mandarin in 3 months. Then it came to light that he sells ebooks about rapid learning, which turned the conversation to sleazy business practices in e-commerce (I'm probably guilty of turning it that direction, lol).

Anyway, that got me thinking about what we consider sleazy in particular in our Chinese products. I've used plenty of thing for Chinese learning off the internet, and even though I bought something through an ad that said 'learn 3000 Chinese characters in 90 days,' I got great use out of it despite the sensational claim.

I think it goes without saying that overly-hyped or overly-promoted products fit the bill, as do products that claim ridiculous results or to have some learning 'secret' in them.

But I'm curious, what do we count as sleazy and what do we count as safe in products geared toward us?

Is it only textbooks, podcasts, tutoring, and flashcards that make the safe list, or do things like ebooks about Chinese, softwares, and sites that require membership also fit our definition of safe?

[roddy]

"Came to light"? He's got a great big "My Books" link in his header and a list of books and prices down the side. He's hardly hiding the fact. Why would he?

[Meng Lelan]

As soon as I read this thread topic what came to my mind was 忽悠 from Yu Hua's China in Ten Words. Maybe that characterizes the Chinese learning industry these days, though I think for the most part probably not. 

[Kelby]

"Came to light"? He's got a great big "My Books" link in his header and a list of books and prices down the side. He's hardly hiding the fact. Why would he?

Perhaps I was took kind in my phrasing

[imron]

In general I think people who are open and transparent that they are selling or promoting something get a lot more respect than those that try to do soft marketing/advertising.

In general don't try to hide the fact you are selling something, let your product stand for itself, don't post off topic to try and promote things, and if you want to be seen as part of the community, make sure to participate in it beyond things that are relevant to just your product.

[Baron]

Chineseclass101. I'm not sure I'd refer to it as sleazy, but their marketing is absolutely horrendous. 

 

e.g.

 

This is your ONLY opportunity to make use of this unique offer to save money that you'll regret for the rest of your life if you don't take it right now this secondbecausethisisuyouroneandonlyopportunity (etc in 80pt font for a whole page)

 

Yes, I want it                   No I'm an idiot and I don't want it

 

 

I thought the whole thing was a scam because no one in their right mind would really sign up for a free account and before having even seen the product get scared into a 99 dollar purchase. Their email spam is similar. They even sent one the other day with the sender as something line 'From the CEO', without even putting the company name in.

 

As for your question, 'what is sleazy and what is safe', safe is anything that can be sampled and assess before making a commitment or purchase, and has some kind of guarantees about it's reliability (e.g. independent reviews, secure transaction methods). Sleazy is everything that tries to sell you something you're not allowed to see, and has 'once in a lifetime offers'. There's a reason they can only offer it once and chose to do so at the point of original sale. 

 

So what are you selling on your blog, out of curiosity?

[Kelby]

Nothing, actually. I've thought about things that I could make that would add value to everyone, but honestly I've yet to land on something that I could feel proud about contributing to the community. I did have a little go with something once though...

My blog started as a little project to do more writing, about a more focused topic than prior personal blogs, and which might draw in some eyes. Then I had a bunch of expat friends here in Zhengzhou, finding out I speak and blog about Chinese, who asked me how I got started. I started writing about the basics I thought were important for beginners, put it all into an 80 page PDF guide, and sent it to folks I bumped into who seemed truly interested in learning Mandarin. One day I had a friend ask me where he could buy a copy, and only then is when I considered putting it up on my website for sale to see if anyone would actually be interested. I was a little shocked that someone heard the premise of what I wrote and then wanted to give money for it, so I tried putting it online to see if the guy was just being friendly or if strangers would be interested in paying for it too.

Turns out I sold one copy at an arbitrarily chosen $10. I thanked him by email, reminded him that if he was unsatisfied he could get a full refund, and as thanks for supporting the site said he'll get a free copy of anything else I decided to put out.

Never got a complaint or any feedback from the guy, even after following up a while after the sale. Having an odd amount of cash sitting in my Paypal, I donated the money I made to wikipedia. while there was no interaction but the sal,e I've noticed that he's subscribed to me email list and never misses a post. Obviously this guy doesn't feel outraged or ripped off, and since he regularly comes back for more of what I write I can only assume he found the guid useful.

In the end I took it down though. The guide just doesn't fit with where I want to site to go, or with my interests, and I feel I can't do the subject of starting learning Chinese well enough for the mainstream to get much out of it. I still would love to contribute a product to the community some day, but it would have to be in the form of a tool, service, or community way that justifies paying for it only if that will make it provide more value (e.g., allowing me to add more features, not just charging so I can whittle down my student debt here and there).

Thanks for asking. I appreciate the curiosity

[roddy]

Regarding Baron's comments on ChineseClass101 (which I know nothing about, btw) - the thing is, that kind of marketing actually works. Maybe not on you, and I'd like to think not on me, but phrases like "this offer is only open today" or "join thousands of other satisfied customers" plug right into FOMO.

 

I've been looking at how I market this site lately. It's tricky. I have a constitutional aversion to being pushy, but if it actually works and we end up with more members and posts, how bad is it? If the people you are turning off aren't customers anyway, and they can opt out with a click or two...

 

Month or more back I happened to notice Kelby hadn't posted in a while. I sent him an email to see if we could tempt him back, and sure enough he came back. He's started various topics, and that's had a knock-on effect in creating more activity on the site. So, result. But someone else might equally have been irritated that some admin from a site he'd signed up to and forgotten about was bothering him with an unwanted email. Best community management practice would probably be to doing that pretty much automatically for all members. Sleazy?

[Kelby]

Month or more back I happened to notice Kelby hadn't posted in a while. I sent him an email to see if we could tempt him back, and sure enough he came back. He's started various topics, and that's had a knock-on effect in creating more activity on the site. So, result. But someone else might equally have been irritated that some admin from a site he'd signed up to and forgotten about was bothering him with an unwanted email. Best community management practice would probably be to doing that pretty much automatically for all members. Sleazy?

Kelby just so happened to start this topic too, lol.

Well, from this experience I can say it was in nonway sleazy. For those who haven't hacked into my inbox and read Roddy and my correspondence, he was in no way pushy. It was nice to know that someone noticed I was gone and that they thought I could contribute to the community.

I guess the difference I see between this and ChineseWhatever101 is that the latter frames their pitch in terms of "join us or you're missing out," whereas Roddy framed his in terms of "join us because we're missing out by not having you."

Whether that would work on everyone I don't know. I can say that feeling invited into a community will usually entice people more than "buy it now or go to the grave with regret," pitches. We all want to feel like we belong, no?

It would have been way different had I told Roddy I stopped studying Chinese and he pushed to get me back into it. Touching base is never sleazy, but pushing people will always feel that way I think.

[imron]

Maybe not on you, and I'd like to think not on me, but phrases like "this offer is only open today" or "join thousands of other satisfied customers" plug right into FOMO.

I really see it as an insult to my intelligence, and it's an automatic turnoff for any site I see.  It's not like I don't know how to reset my cookies or anything to get the 'once off offer' again

[Baron]

Regarding Roddy’s point about the buy now or forever regret it style of selling working, well yes it does work up to a point, but so do those Nigerian prince email scams, and viagra spam. However if they really worked, everyone from Tesco to Apple would be using them.

Here’s an interesting thing about Chineseclass101, given that it isn’t exactly a household name round here, the podcast are actually not bad. Try the ‘advanced audio blog’. You may even hear a few familiar voices as the staff listed on their now-deleted wikipedia page included some of the people involved in Popup Chinese. No prizes for guessing why it was deleted (spoiler: advertising spam). So it looks like their crappy sales and marketing undermined a potentially useful study resource. That and the fact website is horrible to use.

And if someone reacted badly to having a email that had personalised recognition of the value they bring to the site (especially a site that has ‘a sense of belonging’ as one of it’s main selling points), they’re probably a bit of a sociopath. Even those emails like ‘your tumblr dashboard misses you’ are usually at worse a mild irritation, and only when you really have lost interest.
 

If you want more people to come here and post, give them a reason to do so.