Got this Nectar email and immdiately noticed something odd in the subject line. Repeat the firstname twice is, assumbly, not something they plan to do, particularly when there is an extra space after the second firstname. 

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Looks like this only happens in Gmail. If you view it in Outlook all the rendering and links work fine.

So maybe what Currys needs is a little bit more rendering test before live send.

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Instead of sending a normal but boring order confirmation email, Ocado send me a calendar invitation where I can easily add the delivery date to my agenda online. In the "Who" part, if they could have their name Ocado on it, that looks even greater!

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Today I have been ploughing through my inbox and two peculiar emails caught my eyes. They were both from ASK, the restaurant which regularly sends out weekly voucher/coupon stuff. Apparently someone in their email marketing team seems to click the wrong button by broadcasting the test mailing to all their subscribers. 

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I first heard about this exciting "spend £40 get £20 off" offer on Martin's Money Tips email newsletter. After subscribed to a third party called Crowdity, I thought I should be entitled to the voucher code, which I did receive via email one day later. Only a couple of hours afterwards, another email camed from Crowdity announcing that due to the high demand the voucher code they issued were no longer active. I think there must be some angry subscribers out there as I received their second apology with clear instruction on how to unsubscribe their emails.

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I get used to receive various coupons on a daily basis. Usually a voucher code needs to enter manually during checkout. What is interesting in Holland & Barrett's case is that it doesn't provide any code in their email. It is the clickthrough from that email that entitles you to the discount.

 The URL of any clicks in this email is http://e.hollandandbarrett.com/a/hBNr-JdB7SGH6B8aUxXNsfrquBw/hb6

The unique tracking URL is then revealed after click: http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/index.asp?cm_mmc=Cheetah-_-p9_react_wk30-_-banner-_-_react&afid=81&safid=18691&sc=18691

When you check out, the discount is added automatically.

The flip side of this way as opposed to "copy-and-paste voucher code" is that you have to make sure you start your journey from that specific email.

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I haven't been using Tesco grocery online shopping for a while. It was until this time I noticed that they would send you a text message confirming the delivery time the day before delivery. Quite considerate particularly when you book your delivery slot several days in advance which could easily slip from your mind.

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It seems there is no turning back if you accidentally unsubcribe yourself to Sainsbury's email newsletter.

I think there are two problems here: 1) one-click unsubscrbe, from a marketer's perspective, is unnecessary. Instead of opt-out directly, Sainsbury's should have a further confirmation page where more preference settings can be adjusted (e.g. pause, resume, remove); 2) Preference centre should be syncronised so if someone opted out via email link his or her status should reflect it as well.

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Can I trust a company where there is no contact details listed, or at least explicitely listed on their website? Absolutely no if I haven't read their newsletter for years. But I do think StrawberryNet miss something here when they don't provide a "Contact Us" anywhere on their site, considering they operate 100% online (or is it?). The only way I can get hold of this information is by clicking "Customer Service", a label down the bottom that can be easily overlooked.

What is interesting is that on the newsletter they sent me, a "Contact Us" is clearly available and it leads to a well-presented contact page, which seems inaccessible directly through browsing the website (rather than clicking through the email).

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Today I logged into my PeoplePerHour (hint: it's just what the name says) account only to discover this "Email Undeliverable" message. But it is not true as I still receive the newsletter every single day. Maybe it is a double opt-in reassurance measure to confirm user's email given the fact that I haven't clicked through the links in those emails for a while.

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Tumblr, my beloved microblogging platform, has, once again, demonstrated their humourous attentiveness to their users. It can surely win itself into someone's 404 art collection. Another company that is doing well in 404 page is Twitter.

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When I chose the delivery slot on Sainsburys online, where it said £3.5 clearly on the booking page, I didn't realise the actual price is £6 if I spend less than £40. For critial information like this, I don't think it's a wise decision to hide it behind and let customers discover themselves later on.

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I honestly think the map feature existed on many B2C websites are total crap. You can never depend on them to find your way around and none of them has Google Map's Street View which I use 99% of the time. As a consequence I always end up copying the postcode from one page to another. A map, in my point of view, should show more than just dropping pins intensively on the teeny tiny graph, making it almost impossible to locate the direction whatsoever. I screenshot some bad examples:

The Body Shop:

Royal Mail:

Probably the only exception is Tesco, which has some additional layers to the plain 2D map. But still, where is the Street View?

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It was just about the first time I decided to take advantage of a Groupon discount, their site (Groupon.co.uk) went down... What are the chances...:=(

However, Groupon.com is working alright. I also noticed the copyright date at the page bottom still stays in 2010 on Groupon.co.uk but is updated on groupon.com. Maybe Groupon should dedicate as much effort to the UK market as they do to the US.

See the full gallery on Posterous

PS: Upon refreshing Groupon.co.uk homepage after 20 minutes, I saw this page. What the hell is that?

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Sometimes I think it would be really helpful if Outlook can lock the folder structure to prevent users from accidentally dragging them to the wrong locations (think about the protected tab in Firefox). What makes the situation even worse is that there is no confirm message when a folder is relocated. One time I spent nearly 20 minutes looking for an important folder that was dragged all the way to the "deleted items" by mistake.

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The reason this email caught my eyes during my daily glancing has nothing to do with the content, but the rendering issues. I don't think it has gone through enough testing before send.

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Taobao, the hugely popular online auction and shopping giant in China (similar to eBay), doesn't seem to give email deliverability enough care. Today I dig out one email from my spam that is from Taobao. This email is same as the "new items from your favourite sellers" notification from eBay. Out of curiosity, I checked its original header:

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Nowadays, many email clients (e.g. Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) disable images by default. This can be a nightmare for some retailers. So if the recipient doesn't bother or care enough to click on "display images below" link, the email they send is literally a total blank.

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Back about a month ago, I talked about Groupon and how it should add location to their daily email. Well... yesterday I stumbled upon 5pm.co.uk. Apparently they also jump on the groupon bandwagon. Putting aside others, one nifty thing about this site is they incorporate the Google Map to every offer they have. Quote from Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory: In bladder voiding, as in real estate, it's location, location, location...

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This email was received back in January 2005. That is six years ago, when we don't even have things like Youtube or Twitter. Fast forward to today and we can see how email design has shifted dramatically.

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