We have seen companies closing doors owing to these challenges. Businesses need good sales to achieve profits and return on investment for shareholders. The challenge businesses face is to convince consumers to buy goods from their store and not from the competitor. This calls for robust marketing strategies. During this survival period, enterprises employ bait or bait-and-switch advertising. Bait or bait-and-switch advertising is defined as “an alluring but deceptive and insincere offer whereby the advertiser does not intend to sell the advertised product or service at the unusually low advertised price” (Concise dictionary). A business that uses bait advertising would advertise goods or services as being available when in actual fact they are not or the advertised goods are low in quantities.
The media advert would show goods at low prices and unsuspecting consumers would, believing goods to be available, rush to the store only to be confronted with excuses. In some instances, consumers will only find goods that are different from those advertised. The business would in the process convince consumers that the available goods are of same quality as those on the advert or the advertised were sold out. Bait advertising is mostly practised by big businesses, which normally have extensive marketing strategies.
