Last week several of my friends got an email from retail stores, like Michael Kors, with the subject line, “We’re sorry.” Obviously that made these online shoppers curious as to why Mr. Kors, David Yurman and several other prominent designers are apologizing?  The email, seen below, claims that the online store was having problems and wanted to extend free shipping to these valuable customers. It seemed strange that several online stores had the same “problem” and offered the same solution, free shipping. This had some people wondering whether this was really a ploy to get people to open these emails to entice shoppers.

Either all these shopping websites had real problems or there’s a new strategy emerging so you click on their emails.

Each day we all have lots of emails to get through and it is easy to just delete a 10% off sale at Saks. According to a study conducted by online marketing firm, Silverpop,  the average email click-through rate or CTR was 4.5 percent and the median was 2.4 percent, back in 2009.  Two years later, with even more distractions we can only imagine how challenging it is for businesses to reach their audience and encourage them to buy what they are selling.

So the next time someone says they’re sorry in the subject you better keep your wallet in your bag.

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From: Michael Kors <MichaelKors@michaelkorsemail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 11:58 AM
Subject: Our Sincerest Apologies
To: receipient@gmail.com