Lie To Customers: How Dishonesty Destroys Your Online Business?

Most people don’t have anything good to say about it when it comes to sales and marketing, because they find the topic manipulative and bad for the world. That’s mainly because some people have felt the bad end of the stick when it comes to some deals.

And that’s the exact reason you want to be honest when selling your products! Not convinced yet? Well, keep on reading to find out why!

Honest Vs. Misleading Marketing

When you think about making money, you might think that the only way forward is to lie and make your product sound as good as possible.

While that might be able to make you some sales faster in the short term, it will not guarantee you any success in the future. People don’t like to be disappointed or feel they wasted their money.

And when they get scammed, the people want to spread it around the world, so no one will ever buy from your business again, destroying your reputation.

However, with honest marketing, the exact opposite happens! While it might be more challenging to get purchases initially, it will be much easier in the long term!

If you never lie to your customers, you’ll create fans for your company. That means they’ll be more likely to buy from you. And that’s not all. They’ll likely recommend your products to their friends since they have a great outlook on your business, giving you more sales!

#1 Reason for Being Honest With Your Customers

If the above statements didn’t convince you to be honest with your customers, some statistics will. In 2021, PrestaShop created a survey to determine why customers buy certain brands.

They got answers from over 17,000 people from various English-speaking countries, and here’s what they found out:

While before, the statistics said that the most important reasons for buying from cement companies were the price and quality of the product, it’s no longer the case. A whopping 46.4% of respondents said that one of the three most important reasons for buying is honesty and transparency.

While that might be the most important thing, it doesn’t mean that you can sell overpriced and low-quality products. They found out that 45.7% of people still have quality and price as their top three reasons for buying.

How Misleading Customers Nearly Destroyed CD Project Red

The video game industry is one of the most lucrative businesses globally. With games like GTA V making $6 billion in revenue, people quickly see why people want to get into the industry. However, that doesn’t mean that gamers don’t take misinformation lightly.

To prove it, let’s talk about CD Project Red. A few years ago, they were considered one of the best video game studios. That’s because their Witcher games have been well-received thanks to their quality.

And when they announced Cyberpunk 2077, many players were eager to get their hands on it. With the many promises made and the company’s reputation, people never expected the game to flop.

But in 2020, the game launched in a mess! Many of the features promised didn’t make it into the final game, and it didn’t run as expected.

But they didn’t ruin their reputation with their players. Instead, the company also got into legal trouble. Fortunately, many issues have been fixed by now, and most players are happy. However, they’ve not recovered their reputation yet.

Conclusion

From the example and statistics, it should be clear that you should never lie to your customers. So when you’re promoting your Shoplazza or Shopify store, be sure to promise what you can fulfill, or you’ll feel the consequences of your actions sooner or later.

(Contributed by Andreas Ojala & Hermes Fang)