"Exclusive" online deals.
Don't you get tired of the pseudo-spam? You know what I mean; you've signed up for e-mails with some 'legitimate' company and all they send you is advertising garbage. Excuse me, I mean "exclusive online deals". How "exclusive" can they be when everybody whose e-mail address they've got gets the same mass-mailing?
In the most recent such inbox insult I, along with 40 million other people, was offered "clearance items". Uh-huh. Let me translate that for you: "a bunch of crap that's cluttering up the warehouse because nobody wants it at any price." Or perhaps "we were going to throw this out, but we thought maybe someone would be dumb enough to buy it - like we did."
'Sale' in general are pretty sad affairs these days, with ridiculously small discounts on obscenely pricey items. I can't remember the last time I saw a 'sale' that actually offered something I thought was a good deal; mostly it's just "not as expensive as it's going to be next week".
Really: retail is horrific enough these days without our being offered the 'opportunity' to pay for the 'privilege' of hauling their trash away.