Email Signup: Customer Experience FAIL

This is what happens when you put IT in charge of a job that should belong to marketing:

1. Near invisible call to action:

2. Impersonal landing page after sign up with NO links back to the e-store.

"Subscription requested.
Please check your email for a confirmation message. You must respond to this confirmation message to join this list."

3. Impersonal and meaningless sender name in confirmation email:

4. And unclear instructions. Reply to this email...with what? Doesn't compel me to visit the site. Doesn't give an idea of what to expect from future emails of "interest."

Most retail emails I have signed up for have not asked for confirmation (double opt in). If the recipient doesn't take action on this email, he or she will not receive further messages - either the message doesn't get opened, or the recipient doesn't understand the confirmation instructions. I think a better approach is to send all subsequent emails with a clear unsubscribe link at the top of the email (rather than discreetly at the bottom, so people don't mistakenly mark your message as "spam").

I'm disappointed at the lack of "magic" from this toy retailer, because shopping for toys is an emotional experience, and the FAO Schwarz brand has always been magical.

Check out the difference from Disney Shopping's welcome email: