Are low cost "tripwire" offers unethical?

[DennisD]

"Would you like fries with that?" = Up-selling ... lol

It's a fun for us to poke fun because McDonalds is a pretty low-rent business mass-marketed towards the lowest common denominator... aWe associate McDonalds employees with sidewalking and we associate their customers with low-class people who don't care about the future.

Let's not forget that McD's is worth nearly $62 Billion dollars for just these practices. "Would you like fries with that" IS the OG of upsells. It's so well done and so ingrained into us that McDs customers EXPECT and even WELCOME the question.

Dollar Fries ARE tripwires. Toys in happy meals = GENIUS incentive to get kids on board.
Every big mac tastes the same, every batch of fries tastes the same and you're not taking a risk when you order even when traveling. McDs is a mammoth of a company and they're doing a LOT of things right.

 

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[DennisD]

I think this whole discussion is a straw man.

Who cares?
It's a good discussion. Does it really matter if the post that prompted it was disingenuous?

Lots of good higher-level thinking and ideas coming out of it, people seem engaged, and there's practically NO rep, speed, recognition, money, or promotion upside from the OP even if it was just clickbait.

 

[Daniel A]

@DennisDuty Yeah after I posted that I realized it might be taken the wrong way, but I didn't fix it. The "lol" was because it's a clever up-sell.

I agree, there's no way McDonald's would be doing as well as it is if it wasn't doing things right business-wise. I actually watched something on Netflix that covered McDonald's because I wanted to learn more about it.

@MJ DeMarco Haha! Coincidence. I was seriously about to print the PDF offered on this website. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

 

[piesandak47]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I don't get why a lot of people think I'm trolling or using this as clickbait or whatever. I legitimately just wanted to know what everyone thought about tripwires haha.

I think the source of people calling them unethical was from the thread about ryan deiss and his work, but maybe I misinterpreted it.

 

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[theag]

I think the source of people calling them unethical was from the thread about ryan deiss and his work, but maybe I misinterpreted it.

Maybe you cant read. Nobody ever said that tripwires were unethical in that thread. People criticized the unclear one-click upsells.

Ryan Deiss' stuff is absolute F*cking GOLD if used for a real business with real value behind the marketing. His strategies took my business from 0 to 6 figures in 6 months and will take my business to 8-9 figures in the next 5 years.

 

[GuestUser112]

Its all about perspective really. If McDonalds started pretending that its double cheeseburgers were healthy it would be a complete lie and therefore unethical. But they don't, so it isn't. If you're a poverty stricken young man with the ambition to become a professional wrestler, McDonalds is a life saver because the calorie content for the price is insane. It doesn't make sense for people to starve in America when you can get a 350 calorie burger for a dollar. You won't look like Ryan Gosling but hey your alive.

However, I also think its unethical for people to refuse to use their brains. Ignorance is a choice. So if you attend a $10 000 seminar about how to spend money wisely, you're just as much of an a-hole as the guy who's giving it. Its like all these people complaining about the educational system when they live next to a library and have internet access.

Is 'selling' unethical? If you think so, you might as well go join the army... Irony.....

Tripwires are just a selling tool.

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

I am still waiting for someone (the OP or other) to post me an example of anyone that called a tripwire unethical.

I've looked.
He may be referring to that thread that someone posted the links for and got all confused about us berating the guy who did it.

 

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[JasonR]

All a "tripwire" is is a product priced lower than its market value. How is that remotely unethical?

You're basically providing a product that the value the person gets from it is WAY above its price point, be it $15, $7, $1 etc.

A free trial to a SaaS is a tripwire - it's a very low barrier to entry.

I use Shipstation to ship my orders - they gave me a free trial and I was hooked. Was I unhappy that they started billing me after the 30 day free trial period? Hell no. I gladly send them money each month.

In the same line of thinking, there is nothing wrong with an upsell either.

If you read Ready, Fire, Aim you'll see many successful businesses were built using a tripwire, for break even or a loss, and the profit was made on back end sales.

Most people only think of the product. Buy product X and sell it for price Y. Make sure Y is less than you paid for it. Most people don't take in account the cost per acquisition (CPA).

If you can start thinking, how do I acquire a customer at break even, and then profit on back end sales, you'll go much further than most people.

 

[theag]

a "tripwire" is is a product priced lower than its market value

Not necessarily.

 

[Andy Black]

If you can start thinking, how do I acquire a customer at break even, and then profit on back end sales, you'll go much further than most people.

^^^ This

Heck, I even did a 2 minute video about it.

 

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[Ma Co]

It's a fun for us to poke fun because McDonalds is a pretty low-rent business mass-marketed towards the lowest common denominator... aWe associate McDonalds employees with sidewalking and we associate their customers with low-class people who don't care about the future.

Let's not forget that McD's is worth nearly $62 Billion dollars for just these practices. "Would you like fries with that" IS the OG of upsells. It's so well done and so ingrained into us that McDs customers EXPECT and even WELCOME the question.

Dollar Fries ARE tripwires. Toys in happy meals = GENIUS incentive to get kids on board.
Every big mac tastes the same, every batch of fries tastes the same and you're not taking a risk when you order even when traveling. McDs is a mammoth of a company and they're doing a LOT of things right.

Just as an interesting aside:

In one of Dan Kennedy's seminars he advocates: "Raise your prices!!!"
Then he mentions that the FIRST time McD's lost money is when they came up with their $1 menu.