Today I was at a Catholic site which offered some $3 talks on CD. I found one on Halloween, and I thought it would be interesting to hear what they had to say for $3. I was expecting there to be an MP3 download, but no, only CD. I'm thinking, this talk isn't worth $3 plus shipping, more than likely. And what was shipping? $7! Like heck I'm going to pay $10 for this CD! I felt like writing them and asking them to support MP3s for this sort of thing, when I realized that this was probably part of their business plan: A $3 loss-leader that sucks people into buying more expensive sets to justify the shipping. Kind of like my habit of buying additional items at Amazon so I can get free shipping. (Although those are usually items I would have needed anyway.)
Is this the sort of thing a Christian site should be doing? It always irks me when companies try to trick, deceive, or otherwise manipulate you into buying stuff. I feel like I'm being taken advantage of.
Anyway I am going without the $3 CD. I am not giving into this behavior.
Are you sure they do this on purpose? It could be that the CDs aren't selling well, so they're trying to dump them to minimize their losses.
Even if not, you could inquire about MP3s; they might just go along with it.
This is a huge pet peeve of mine too. I bought a CD for $0.50 on eBay once and the guy who promised in the listing "reasonable shipping" wanted $10! All it was was a CD Jewel case. I mail them all the time. Cost a couple bucks max! Like Eric said, it's a profit center.