3 Unethical Marketing Practices You Need To Avoid

Hello everyone ! I am Nazmul Hasan Turag , a BBA Student from Lovely Professional University ( LPU) want to share my view on ethics in marketing.Here I want to talk about '3 unethical marketing practices you need to avoid.    


When one starts a company, either online or in real life, many have hopes of striking it rich. However, not everyone wants to make money honestly using hard work, not everyone has what it takes to be successful solely through ethical marketing practices. This is exactly why many people start engaging in unethical marketing practices. The goal here may be to trick customers into buying more, shutting out their competition, or simply enhancing their own name in some way. If the process is not strictly honest, the company may be putting its reputation on the line.

1. Forcing Customers Into Making A Purchase

There are several ways to convince people to buy your product. This may be done honestly, or occasionally in a forceful manner. 

For instance, on their online sales page, there might be huge exclamations and banners falsely proclaiming charitable donations or how their product would help alleviate from poverty. Another example might be stating to their customers that buying their product may be the only way to make money online. If vendors claim that there is no use in trying to make money without their product, they are outright misinforming customers. 

In most cases your product should sell itself through referrals and word of mouth. You may inform customers of what they would gain by buying what you have to offer. Alternatively, you could also honestly say what difference your product could make over others. 

2. Accuracy in text or advertising

Sometimes goods on the market are not worth buying. Online marketing often uses photography and writing techniques to mislead. Unfortunately, often if the prices are too cheap, there is an almost certain compromise on quality. If the pictures are of food, it may be much smaller than it seems to be. Close-ups, zooming in, and lighting can serve to trick a customer into placing an order. 

This practice may serve to get you a few initial orders, but very few repeat purchases. Customers would definitely not return to a vendor who has fooled them once. 

Hence, it is important to make sure you are not just concentrating solely on making sales, but providing the best product or service you can as well. This would satisfy your customers, and they would most likely make your products popular in return.

3. Under Delivering And Over Charging

These practices would never endear a company to its customers, nor help in attracting new ones. When you don’t deliver the full order or charge exorbitant prices, you are very likely to turn off customers. 

Many marketers adopt the unethical practice of promising the customers a lot of things within a package. However, once the customer makes the purchase, they are told that the extra items are out of stock. This is a highly disappointing event and could lead to a lot of anger and frustration. Honesty for your company is one of the most important practices and should got through your whole company.

It is important to educate yourself about unethical marketing practices. This is because you may be indulging in these activities without realizing it. If customers and social media influencers catch on to this, it may break your hold on the market. Hence, it is a much better choice to stay above board while dealing with your market. You may not earn so much in the beginning, but your customers’ trust is priceless in the long run.