About a week and a half ago I ordered a pair of sandals from Endless.com and since then, the e-mails have seemed endless.

While I have been an Amazon customer for years, this was my first time ordering from their independently run e-commerce shoe store. So like any good e-commerce store, it sent me a confirmation e-mail to let me know that my purchase had gone through, as well as a follow up e-mail the next day to let me know that my product had shipped. These two e-mails are a great use of e-mail so far.

But then the blasts began. It seemed like every day for a week, I got an offer for free shipping on some other kind of shoe. It felt overwhelming that I had ordered a product from this new company and instead of sending me an introduction e-mail detailing the offers that it would send, or even an option to opt in to receive savings, I was automatically being bombarded with marketing messages. It was also surprising because I had unchecked the box to sign up for the e-mail program. While I know, my purchase alone was a non-direct opt-in to subsequent messages, most best practices would not have persisted with marketing messages to a customer who had not directly signed up for offers.