Sears Portrait Studio

Garden City, NY

Re: Sears Portrait Needs to Understand Cultural Customs (Order # )

It was our first portrait experience with Sears. My family had a very good photo session with Keira. Compared to The Picture People, where we usually go, our photo shoot at Sears was relaxing. Keira made sure we liked all of the poses. She also helped us choose the poses and number of each print in our order. We spent some time with our order, but we felt unrushed and appreciated Keira's input.

However, when we picked up our order, the Sears Portrait sales representative, April, showed us 4 more poses that was not part of our order. She showed us a sepia toned 8=94x10=94, a black and white 8=94x10=94, etc. We were confused: we spent time selecting the poses and number of prints we wanted. Why was April showing us more?

April told us it was to show us the different effects that Sears Portrait offers. It was to show us more possibilities. However, Keira

had already showed us the different printing effects when we placed our order. April said that she had no control over this printing feature; Sears Portrait had this automatic printing addition.

We felt infuriated. Is this some kind of guerilla marketing technique that Sears Portrait is using to get us to spend more money? We had already spent time with our order. Why were we being pushed to buy more?

In the U.S., where there are many different cultures, Sears Portrait needs to be sensitive with other customs. In the Chinese culture, images of people SHOULD NOT BE THROWN AWAY. There is a superstition that if people rip and throw away a person's image/photo, it does not bring good luck to that person.

We felt extremely violated that Sears Portrait produced photos WITHOUT OUR CONSENT, after we had already selected our order.

We spent $21 more. We felt extremely cheated. We felt forced to buy these 4 extra photos. Although our photo shoot experience was extremely good, and although we like the quality of our photos (i.e., lighting, color, resolution, composition), we will unfortunately never go back to Sears Portrait because of this guerilla marketing technique you have. It is not worth it.

Sincerely,
Julia Lee