
The worst sales promotion in history: Hoover's free flight fiasco - occamschainsaw
https://thehustle.co/the-worst-sales-promotion-in-history/
======
Zenst
One of the worst sales promotions I managed to take advantage of was not as
grandiose, but still bad marketing.

Iceland (supermarket chain of frozen food) had an offer for buy one get one
free on some branded pizza. But those Pizza boxes also has a voucher on the
packaging for...a free pizza. So I'd buy a pizza and get two free. Then use
those two vouchers to buy two more pizza's and free ones. This I repeated
daily throughout the promotional period in low volumes like that, so as to not
raise awareness of the oversight. Upshot was I had a whole month of free
frozen pizza, two filled up freezers of pizza and on top of that, only ever
paid for that initial pizza. Was a good period of savings on the back of that
promotion at a time in which money was very tight. Also after the store BOGOF
had finished, I still had a pile of free pizza vouchers that lasted for the
rest of the year due to expiry date on those vouchers.

What I surmised was that the pizza manufacturer had said it would do a
promotion for buy one get one free, they did it via vouchers and Iceland
implemented it via the till system. Though equally, still took the vouchers.

~~~
notahacker
On a more basic level, if you like free stuff there's an awful lot of "present
voucher to receive free x for signing up to our mailing list" promotions that
assume people don't have access to more than one email address (or even
prevent you entering multiple name+1@domain.com variants). Always amusing when
this is pointed out to you by the guy that actually built the app...

~~~
MaxBarraclough
> assume people don't have access to more than one email address

It's more likely that they've considered the costs of this sort of low-level
fraud, and have decided the promotion still makes good sense.

------
colinchartier
This is reminiscent of MoviePass's antics when forced to pay up for the huge
deficit per customer they had promised: Change user's passwords to lock them
out, freeze out subscribers arbitrarily from blockbusters, etc. [1]

I wonder if anyone at Hoover got the same treatment of being known as a
disruptor -- the founder of moviepass is quoted as saying, "Things went a
little sideways, so I thought talking to investors now would be, 'Ugh, you
started MoviePass.' But it's 'You started MoviePass!'" [2]

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-story-moviepass-
rise-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-story-moviepass-rise-
fall-2019-8) [2]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-07/moviep...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-07/moviepass-
worked-out-great)

~~~
noneeeed
I am constantly astonished by the MoviePass story. The whole business model
made no sense.

Even if it could be restricted to be financially viable, the cinema chains
were always going to be able to undercut them as they only pay the marginal
cost while making money from the concessions.

~~~
CaptainZapp
It _could_ have made sense, when the moonthly subscription cost was 50$, alas
I doubt it.

~~~
jacurtis
MoviePass actually did run as a $50 subscription for a few years and had a
viable business model.

Many people only know of MoviePass as the $10 a month subscription service
that sprung out of nowhere about 2 years ago, but MoviePass had been around
much longer than that.

MoviePass started back in 2011 and originally required you to print out
physical vouchers at home, and take them into the theater. MoviePass juggled
lots of different pricing models ranging from $25 a month for 3 movies, up to
$99 for an unlimited movies. And yes, for a while they had a $50 per month
unlimited movie plan.

For the first 6 years of their business, they operated in this semi-
sustainable way. They had funding from AOL Ventures, True Ventures, and other
venture capital companies during the time but ran a fairly sustainable
business.

In 2017 they finally had their "exit" when a publically traded analytics
company called "Helios and Matheson" purchased a majority stake in the
company. Helios and Matheson saw potential in MoviePass (which had been
running "successfully" for 6 years at this point) and wanted to expand it to
as many people as possible.

This is when MoviePass decided that the best way to get lots of new users is
to offer them something they can't refuse. How about $10 a month for unlimited
movies. This led to a myriad of articles and free press about the company and
a huge influx of customers. This is when most people had first heard of
MoviePass as if it came out of nowhere, but it had a solid 6-year history of
being in this business.

The goal of this promotion was only to gain a large influx of customers. It
was never intended to be a long term strategy. I also think that H&C (the
parent company) intended to make money back by selling customer data (since
they are already in that business anyway).

Unfortunately, like the Hoover story, they underestimated how many people
would take advantage of this offer for unlimited movies.

~~~
hinkley
Stories like this, combined with personal experiences, have made me very
anxious for the exit coming when I'm still invested in the future of the
company.

The new owners always envision a different business model and those often span
a gamut from slightly sinister to patently absurd.

Startups can have a lot of BS, it's true, but it's a different flavor from the
post-exit BS.

------
Slartie
I think this shows a significant disconnect between the ostensibly-wealthy
managers that cooked up this genius marketing ploy and their customers: if the
managers want an intercontinental flight, they just book it at whatever the
current price is, because £600 is chump change for them and does not motivate
them to invest time into looking for deals. It thus naturally never occurred
to them that anyone would even think about buying the cheapest qualifying
vacuum, even though they don't need one at all, just to get an awesome deal on
flight tickets - basically it's flight ticket buying for £120 with the catch
that you must dispose of a cheap vacuum. Anyone to whom those £600 worth of
flights appear as a considerable value will immediately come to this
conclusion, whereas if £600 means nothing to you, you'd never even think about
putting up with the hassle.

~~~
Sniffnoy
The lesson I draw is a bit different. Sure, they might have failed to think of
that -- but they didn't personally have to think of it, as long as someone
else did and warned them. But, even though they got professionals to assess
the risk, they then completely ignored that assessment. Well -- we all know
how that story ends...

~~~
ghaff
It's probably a mistake to assume that everyone down the line will look at
some promo/ad/etc. with fresh eyes and ask "Do we really want to do this?"

People assume that someone else has vetted the basic concept, get focused on
the mechanics, etc. and focus on the how rather than the should.

ADDED: There are plenty of ads that make you ask: "How did this get through?"
and it's the same basic idea. Having worked for large companies I totally
understand.

~~~
Retra
Lots of people will question this stuff, but they definitely won't bring up
their objections. People are incentivized to collect their paychecks and do
what they're told, not to point out the absurd thinking of the managers and
executives above them. Nobody is thinking they'll save their company those
millions and get an recognition/reward for it. Even the professional risk
assessors got ignored.

~~~
ghaff
I'm not really that cynical. But a lot of people do have their jobs to do, may
even appreciate that they may not be aware of all the context fo some given
decision, and just aren't inclined to fight battles over things that aren't
their department at the end of the day.

------
AndrewStephens
Back when iTunes was new, a potato chip company in NZ had a promotion where
each packet of chips had a printed code that got you enough iTunes credit to
buy one song. By itself it was a good deal - buy a packet of chips for $1.50
(or whatever) and get a song worth 99 cents for free.

What made it amazing was I found that the codes were also printed in the
smaller kids-lunch-sized packets that the local discount supermarket was
selling in packs of 8 for $6.

Not the most spectacular discount but I still felt I was sticking it to the
man each time I ate a tiny packet of chips while listening to a new song.

------
LarryMade2
The real tragedy was it didn't really do anything for Hoover, didn't promote
their product, merely turned it into a tool to acquire something else of more
value.

Hoover was no longer selling their stuff to the consumer, the sale was
guaranteed - whether they made a good product or not - it was selling airline
tickets. I would think quality went down as manufacturing realized they could
cut corners and no one would really notice. So they probably pushed out a lot
of junkier vacuums.

They lost their brand notoriety along with it, as people probably now thought
of hoover as "the place where we could scam some cheap airline tickets"
instead of where to go to get good appliances.

This is where the (illusion of) profit became more important than the product
for the board and that took the company down with it.

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
Reminds me of Uber right now, who is trying to sell something for less than
it's worth.

Hopefully they get enough market share that they can actually switch around
and make enough money to pay their drivers well.

~~~
krisroadruck
Every time I see this I wonder why people never mention the obvious follow-up.
Which to me at least, is will a version of Uber that charges enough to be
profitable and pay their drivers well still be an attractive product? It may
still well be for short trips of a few blocks downtown, but for things like
taking an Uber from the outskirts of town to downtown to avoid having to drive
your car into the thick of traffic, the prices are already close to what I'm
willing to pay for that convenience. Datum point of one but at a current round
trip cost of $60+, raise the prices 50% and I'll either drive myself or just
not go downtown.

------
dEnigma
McDonald's Austria had a feedback promotion, where you got a QR code with your
bill, that led you to a very short survey about your experience, at the end of
which you received a voucher code for a free Coke. When I got my Coke I
noticed that the (0€) bill again had a feedback QR code. Of course I had to
try and see whether I could get another free Coke that way. Sure enough it
worked, but I never abused it, because after two free Cokes I pretty much got
everything I wanted out of it, and it had the added inconvenience of the
survey. (Plus I think you had to get the coke at the same restaurant and I was
afraid someone would notice.)

~~~
johnnycab
I am not an active patron, but it impresses me how creative some people are at
discovering these tricks. It appears that McD doesn't seem to mind, rather
they leave the door slightly ajar for some tomfoolery, making the user believe
they have outsmarted them; usually they are just open-secrets eg. surveys on
receipts for codes, can be a random number.

[https://www.lifehacker.co.uk/2014/08/29/get-much-free-
mcdona...](https://www.lifehacker.co.uk/2014/08/29/get-much-free-mcdonalds-
can-eat)

~~~
mywittyname
I used to work in retail software services and this was known colloquially as,
perpetrating a scam.

Many times, the teams figure out many of the ways that scams can be
perpetrated. Probably the coke instance was probably considered and OKed. But
you're right, people do come up with some really cleaver techniques, which,
when discovered, get added to the pre-rollout test cases.

~~~
moftz
Coke pretty much costs nothing compared to the rest of the operating costs.
This is why many McDs have the price of all the fountain drink sizes the same.
I'm guessing only a minority of people would come in for the free drink and
leave without eating something. It's the same as the monopoly game pieces they
give out. Many just have things like a free hashbrown, or fries, or a drink,
small things. People aren't going to both waiting in line just for something
small like that so either McDs doesn't lose anything when those people don't
come back or they make a real sale when they come back and buy a burger with
their free fries.

------
narrator
There's also the old contract law chestnut of the guy who bought enough Pepsi
points to theoretically earn a Harrier jet. The court said no, you don't get a
jet.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc).

~~~
r00fus
Its crazy that the ads still kept running after the ruling albeit with an
adjusted point cost.

How was the ad not “false advertising“? It should have had a disclaimer.

~~~
tialaramex
It's never false advertising if a reasonable person wouldn't believe it. Irn
Brew advertised that it is "Made in Scotland, from girders" but no reasonable
person would conclude that a fizzy drink would be made from girders, so it
isn't false advertising. Likewise Pringles says "Once you pop you can't stop"
but it isn't false advertising because a reasonable person understands that
they can actually stop.

You can't have a fighter jet. It's not just "They are very expensive" they are
not available. Sale is restricted to qualified purchasers. A reasonable person
knows they can't have a fighter jet. The plaintiffs in that case knew it. They
were just looking for a pile of cash. Too bad.

~~~
dazc
'..but no reasonable person would conclude that a fizzy drink would be made
from girders.'

I remember the ad and did believe the claim at the time. I was pretty young
then though, maybe 5 or 6?

~~~
delinka
Are 5/6 year olds considered “reasonable people”?

~~~
ollie87
Not in my experience.

------
jvanderwal
A few years back Wendy's had an offer where if you got a medium or large drink
there was a coupon on it. 32 coupons got you a one-way flight in the
continental US, 64 got you a round-trip flight. Being a poor college student
at the time, a few friends and I went dumpster diving at all the local Wendy's
and over a couple nights ended up getting about 4 round-trip tickets. The only
drawback was having to throw out those clothes..

~~~
jacurtis
Wow i had never heard of this offer. But it seems like it was a good deal
without even dumpster diving.

What does a Medium Drink at Wendys cost? Probably $1.50?

So buying 32 medium drinks would cost $48, which would get you a free one-way
flight in the US. $48 (plus all the drinks you can handle and diabetes to
prove it) is an insane deal for plane ticket.

By this logic a round trip ticket would cost ~$96 which is also a steal.

Even without dumpster diving, $48 is a great deal for a ticket even if you
just dumped the soda out or never filled up the cup at the fountain.

~~~
ashelmire
They probably figure the average person is going to 1) order a whole meal when
they come to Wendy's and 2) not likely to go to Wendy's 32 times.

Of course, college students are the ones that have the time and metabolic
rates to handle this...

------
pjc50
I'm just about old enough to remember this fiasco being reported week after
week on Watchdog, the long running consumer rights show:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchdog_(TV_programme)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchdog_\(TV_programme\))

(Is there an American counterpart to Watchdog? The number of egregious anti-
consumer actions that I hear about on the Internet suggests not)

~~~
obituary_latte
Unfortunately not. Closest thing would be Consumer Reports which was never —
afaik — televised. Makes sense if you think about it - US networks would never
air such a program that could negatively effect the potential for advertisers.
I guess the one possible exception being Public Television.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Makes sense, Watchdog is produced by the BBC who don't have to worry about
such things.

------
leejoramo
Then there was the US Mint promotion of selling and __shipping __collectible
$1 coins for $1

The US Government made plenty of money since it costs very little to make the
coin

But people paid for the coins using airmile or other reward credit cards and
made huge rewards.

[https://boingboing.net/2009/12/08/airmile-hackers-
use.html](https://boingboing.net/2009/12/08/airmile-hackers-use.html)

~~~
davinic
And those reward card purchases pass a much higher interchange rate to the
retailer (the US Mint in this case).

~~~
dllthomas
... but almost certainly significantly less than the seigniorage.

~~~
davinic
Ha, fair point!

------
vr46
Heh, I got a free flight out of this! It was my second trip to NYC from
London, I was 19 or 20 and the markets were saturated with cheap brand-new
Hoovers that people didn’t need. Great trip to NY/hapless marketing campaign
from Hoover.

~~~
rconti
How long did it take from vacuum purchase to tickets in-hand?

~~~
vr46
A LONG TIME. Best part of 6-12 months, maybe. That is a long time when you're
19.

------
TuringNYC
In the late 90s dot-com bubble, I had many friends at the Austin software
company Trilogy (which hired extensively at our university).

Apparently they had an HR referral promotion where "you refer a person that
gets hired, you get $5000, you refer two people, you get $10000, _you refer
three people, you get $20000, and so on..._ "

I heard the referral schema was quickly cancelled once HR discovered
exponential growth.

~~~
mlrtime
This is still quite common however hiring managers, internal recruiters and HR
are always excluded.

~~~
TuringNYC
Really? Did you notice the last bit? The referral fee _doubled_ with each
additional hire! It grew exponentially!

~~~
hinkley
I'm sure they would have gotten plenty of activity even if it only went up
$2500-5000 per subsequent hire, rather than doubling.

------
CPLX
This is roughly the same business model as Uber. They should have just raised
a billion dollars first and claimed it would all make sense when the roomba
was invented.

------
Theodores
The Hoover story (decline chapter) goes beyond the legendary sales promotion.

The former factory in Perivale, West London was an Art Deco masterpiece, that
closed down in 1982. There was manufacturing in South Wales (the 'China' of
it's day) and that factory finally closed about a decade ago. This factory
also did the contract manufacturing for the Sinclair C5.

The actual promotion was not that wild a deal. If you look at the
privatisations that the UK public were offered you can see some true gift-
horses. If you bought shares in anything the government were flogging off then
you made a lot of money. You also were bought - you could be expected to vote
Conservative from then on - 'brand loyal'.

If we look at the VC funded things that go on today, every early Uber ride was
a 'sales promotion'. Same with the early days of Amazon where money was not so
important. Even online groceries sales are a bit speculative.

What is sad is the lack of genuine offers from today's brands. In the olden
days competitions would have a 'tie breaker' to complete, nowadays they want
you to text or call a premium rate number that costs enough to pay for the
promotion.

In the 1980's a typical 'really good promotion' could be something like the
Weetabix Lego offer. If you bought a dozen packs of Weetabix cereal then you
would have enough tokens to get a really good and quite exclusive Lego set,
or, if you didn't want to have 576 Weetabix biscuits to eat then you could pay
retail equivalent for the Lego offer. There was nothing disingenuous about it
and any delay in shipping (28 days of delivery was never realistic) only added
to the excitement and anticipation.

I don't know why but in the days before the internet when everything had to be
manually transcribed from posted-in forms the offers and promotions were just
that bit more honest. Stuff wasn't cheap and made in China then. The Hoover
disaster marks the end of this happy chapter of consumerism.

~~~
dazc
'any delay in shipping (28 days of delivery was never realistic) only added to
the excitement and anticipation.'

I fondly remember getting all manner of free-stuff as a kid by collecting
coupons. As you say, having to wait so long for delivery made it seem like you
were getting something really special.

Nowadays if my Prime delivery doesn't turn up by 11 am the next day I get
frustrated.

------
harshbutfair
There was a very similar promotion running in Australia last year where you
could get free return flights for buying six bottles of wine (minimum cost
around $68). They also required sending in paper forms and nominating three
destinations and three sets of dates. I went to Bali on that deal.

~~~
stirlo
I got in on this deal too, nominated 3 destinations in New Zealand and got
free flights to Christchurch.

That said a number of people missed out due to the confusing processing and a
page where it requested ID (drivers license or passport) but if you only
provided a drivers license they refused to accept any international
destinations, therefor you hadn’t nominated 3, therefor you got nothing. Of
course it would have been trivial to ask for passport details after the fact
but obviously the intention was to deny those who tired to claim on any
technicality possible. The passport requirement wasn’t mentioned in any terms
either which makes it even more dodgy.

------
noneeeed
I have strong childhood memories of watching the consumer campaign programme
Watchdog with my parents. This was one of their biggest and longest running
stories. It's hard to overstate just how badly this screwed Hoover in the UK.
Their name really was mud by the end of it, and now it's genuinely a bit
surprising for me to see a Hoover.

------
lordnacho
I always wondered why the British word for vacuum cleaner / cleaning is just
Hoover (like web search is called Google), and yet I'd never come across a
machine that said Hoover on it.

I find it odd that they even thought about this. Why didn't they just limit
their losses by saying "only the first x customers"? Surely it's obvious that
anyone wanting to fly to the US, a pretty popular destination among the
British, would be better off getting a cheap Hoover.

If the point is to get rid of old stock, why not do an offer where you and
your friend get a machine each for a sensible price?

~~~
ben_ev
At least in my generation (born in 80s), I think the name is so synonymous
because of Henry Hoover : [https://www.viking-
direct.co.uk/en/p/155384](https://www.viking-direct.co.uk/en/p/155384)
(shopping link -- I couldn't find a non-shopping link). Although it only says
Henry on it, everyone knows it's Henry Hoover. This is THE absolute classic
vacuum that most people have owned or used at least once in their lives. Not
sure if it's much of a thing outside the UK.

~~~
pm215
FWIW I own a Henry, and I had no idea the name was a play on Henry Hoover's
name -- it's not manufactured by Hoover, after all, and it postdates the word
becoming a generic term by a long way. I think the article's take on it is
more likely -- machines branded Hoover were so ubiquitous in the first half of
the 20th century that the term became a common word (the OED has cites for
'hoover' the verb with no capitalization or quote-marks starting in the
1940s), and once something is a common word it gets passed on to later
generations regardless of whether the actual device in use is one from the
company or not. (Though I remember in the early 1980s the hoover my parents
had was indeed a genuine Hoover...)

------
rtpg
The interesting nugget here is that they did this promo for european flights
and it _did_ work! Granted, the process was really hard and whatnot but saying
"you'll get some flights to Europe if you fill out this form after spending
100 pounds" is kinda bonkers.

~~~
Vespasian
Some differences:

1) Flights in Europe are not that expensive (even in the 90s) and they were
probably able pay that out of their product margins.

2) People will jump through considerably fewer hoops if all they get is a an
1:30 hour flight to Italy over the weekend.

3) Flying to the USA is something special and has a "dream vacation" vibe to
it. In my company it would not be that hard to move a planned vacation around
if I could argue that my flights were part of a great deal.

------
kbouck
I wonder if this event was the inspiration for the pudding coupons in "Punch
Drunk Love"

(Barry plans to exploit a promotion loophole by buying massive amounts of
pudding in exchange for airline miles)

Great movie!

[https://youtu.be/fRgWQUkkyDI](https://youtu.be/fRgWQUkkyDI)

~~~
andysomniac
This was actually a separate incident that actually happened - buying puddings
gave airmiles
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Phillips_(entrepreneur)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Phillips_\(entrepreneur\))

------
chrischen
Google Fi did the exact same thing with their travel promotion that they soon
realized was a terrible deal for them. And then they made up some stuff to
deny fulfilling the order with the travel credit for me, while still hitting
my credit bureau with a hard inquiry.

~~~
estsauver
FWIW, I got the travel promotion.

~~~
chrischen
The real problem was when I had to call support about it... (they had no
support basically).

------
c3534l
They're lucky no one ended up in prison over that. That's just outright fraud.

~~~
techntoke
Rich people get off easy

~~~
whamlastxmas
Lol at your downvotes. HN crowd never disappoints

~~~
DiabloD3
Given how surprised Jeffery Epstein was to find out he committed suicide,
shouldn't anyone anywhere making such a comment get downvoted?

~~~
sooheon
Epstein knew it was coming. And why would this be at odds with the root
comment? Epstein's death served to protect the rich.

------
LanceH
During the 1984 Olympics, in the US, McDonald's ran a promo where you got a
peel off for an event if you bought a large fry, coke or the six piece
nuggets. If a US athlete got a medal you won a food prize, potentially
multiple prizes if the US placed multiple athletes.

This was the year the soviet bloc withdrew as it was in the US. The US won
some absurd number of medals.

The other thing is the prize was always free food, which also had the peel
offs. So you could buy a large fry and have a really good chance of completing
your meal.

Now you'll see the free food consolation prizes are always for something that
doesn't result in another ticket.

------
close04
> Today, it’s remembered as the worst sales promotion in history.

Wasn't the same thing said about American Airlines' "golden ticket"? By
coincidence airfare promotions seem to be front and center in these blunders.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Just a hunch, but airlines often have a lot of empty seats, selling them cheap
would devalue their offering but giving them away makes them look generous.

------
cosmodisk
Reminds me a law book on contracts- there were quite a few cases,where
companies or people try to weasel out of contract as part of advertisement
campaign.Never ends well to them.

~~~
TuringNYC
Seems to work fine for telcos in the US. You can change retroactively change
the price by adding "regulatory recovery fees." If your service is genuinely
misconfigured, you will often get the standard line "service is not
guaranteed" until(if) you get to a Level III Support Engineer.

And in the worst, worst case, you get thrown into arbitration which is already
skewed in the telco's favor.

------
tom_mellior
Some fun examples in this thread. One more is how the French lottery was
hacked in the 18th century: [http://www.veritablehokum.com/comic/voltaire-
broke-the-lotte...](http://www.veritablehokum.com/comic/voltaire-broke-the-
lottery/)

"Short Version: France accidentally started a lottery where, under certain
conditions, the total prize was worth more than the total cost of all the
tickets."

------
baybal2
Reminds me of me trying to get those "Cheapest price guarantees" — had been
turned back at god knows how many reputable retailers, and booking agencies
with replies like "so sue us": Expedia, Booking.com, BestBuy, London Drugs...

I think, many of such cos keep a record of people going for such deals, and
once you request a freebie for the 10th time, they look it up and blacklist
you

------
joosters
_And Hoover vacuums, once the star of every living room in the UK, sit in
closets gathering dust_

Bad choice of phrase for the end of that story!

~~~
Agentlien
I'm quite sure that was intentional.

------
davinic
Nathan For You proved the lengths that people will go to claim a rebate:
[http://www.cc.com/episodes/z5sar1/nathan-for-you-gas-
station...](http://www.cc.com/episodes/z5sar1/nathan-for-you-gas-station-
caricature-artist-season-1-ep-103)

------
mxcrossb
This reminds me a bit of CyberRebate [1], who also seemed to preset on the
“make it too complicated for the customer to get what we owe them” system.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyberRebate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyberRebate)

------
Lukesys
Did anyone just buy a hoover, go on the trip and then return the hoover for a
refund to a store? :)

~~~
dghf
Most British stores won't give refunds just because the customer's changed
their mind: there has to be something wrong with the product sold. This was
even more so in the 90s.

~~~
djpowell
Argos have always done 16-day no quibble money back guarantees

~~~
dazc
Were argos around back then?

~~~
markedathome
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(retailer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_\(retailer\))

established 1972

------
ticmasta
Sounds like Hover defined the playbook that today's hottest startups use: it's
2019's MoviePass business model.

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itoocode
"The common sense" should have told the team that would not work.

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dylan604
Common sense doesn't seem to really be that common any more. More like un-
common sense

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thecleaner
Not related but does someone know some good sales books ?

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Sherl
Where does Costco membership goes in this?

Countless returns of opened and tried products.

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Scoundreller
My Costco always has lines, but the one at the Returns is always the longest.

