Photobox offers – when online special offers aren’t so special

It’s 30th July 2010 today and I used a website called Photobox to order several printed photos that I’d uploaded to them.  Everything worked well as usual but it’s fair to say that I could be classed as being an occasional user (perhaps 2 or 3 times a year).   However, occasional user that I may be, I’m still potentially a convert to spending more money.

After processing the photos order I got presented with not one but two offers.  “That’s good” you may think, but look at what I was offered:

That’s right, my special offers are valid a whole day and a bit.  I wonder what would have happened if I’d placed my order late at night on the 31st July – would I still have been given the same offer?

The point is this – I’m a fairly irregular customer of Photobox and they will know that.  Does it not make sense to, at the very least, have their system set up so that the special offers have a longer expiry time on them?   That could take it through to the end of the next month or better still, noting that I only buy periodically, perhaps longer to 2 or 3 months, and to email remind me of that offer every now and then.

I’d imagine that all buyers get similar ‘offers’ presented to them when they buy towards the end of the month and if that’s the case, how much potential repeat business are they missing out on purely because their system would appear to just focus on the current month end for promotions?

The Photobox site is pretty slick in general but as with any website, it’s sometimes these little tweaks needed that make a bigger difference to revenues being generated.   Let’s say that I had coupons that allowed me a 2-3 month chance to redeem them, and I was reminded along the way.  I could buy something else from them.  I could also tell other people about them as they’ll be more in my consciousness.  But I’m not going to buy anything in the next day and, as a marketer, I find it unforgivable that such a simple opportunity has been overlooked by them.