EDIT: this is a clear GDPR violation - you can't store and use user data without a lawful basis. Marketing requires consent. Consent has to be given freely.
EDIT: even if you worm out of the fine people hate getting unsolicited email like this so some non zero percentage of potential customers will avoid your business in the future.
That would exclude Remarketing services from GDPR-compliance, wouldn't it?
> even if you worm out of the fine people hate getting unsolicited email like this so some non zero percentage of potential customers will avoid your business in the future.
I'm not so sure about this. It may well be true for you and me and our peers, but I don't believe that companies send out annoying "newsletters" and marketing emails just to drive away business, annoy consumers and wake up regulators. They do work for a certain audience.
As an old school mail order pro once said "there is no such thing as junk mail, just a poorly targeted list". If McLaren (to name one of my favorite companies and website) started spamming me with the latest low-down on their hypercars I'd be in heaven... Paul Graham Essays, Jay Abraham ebooks; same deal--pure bliss.
> It may well be true for you and me and our peers
You and me and our peers are a non-zero percentage.
In my previous company we rewrote our checkout flow for this reason. Capturing emails and offering certain consumers discounts via emails after a few hours etc. was a successful move (given that a certain % of people will drop due to price sensitivity) - but GDPR removing that choice is a clearly a good thing for the majority who drop for other reasons.
As for creepy: I wouldn't consider these creepy (i.e. where I've entered my email), but maybe annoying. I had the creepy experience with Pavlok when I first looked into getting one. Browsed around on their site but didn't put one into the cart. Hours later I get an email from them. Turns out they were using some service that loads a beacon and tries to connect the browser via various third party services to an email address. That was creepy. I still ended up buying a Pavlok though, but at a later time.
If I abandon a basket in a retail store, I don't expect a phone call about it hours later after I've left the store and gone home. The first time an online-store followed up with an email about my abandoned basket, I stopped using that store.
Not naive enough to think other stores aren't tracking these metrics, but it's still creepy unless you've been subjected the obviousness of it a lot.
Very curious about your experience! Thanks.
Good to see you're still around, I've enjoyed using my Pavlok quite a bit.
Can't even tell you how many times I dealt with complaints about shipping costs, shipping times, customs costs, returns, etc. Whenever we'd get a complaint we'd just cancel the order and send them a link to a competitor.
Good riddance.