Merchants should review sales advertising claims

The BBB offers the following checklists for businesses to use to perform internal advertising reviews.

1. Does your advertising make your customers satisfied that they do business with you? Your advertising is just another outlet through which you can promote good will and customer loyalty.

2. Are you avoiding impossible promises and guarantees? When using the term guarantee, you should include a statement that complete details are available at the store, on the your Web site, or in the case of mail or telephone sales, are available free upon written request.

3. Is your advertised merchandise readily available? You should have adequate supplies of merchandise on hand to meet expected demands.

4. Do you intend to sell what you advertise? Do not participate in bait-and-switch tactics, which involve advertising a low-priced item to bring in customers, then taking the opportunity to persuade them to buy similar, but higher-priced items.

5. Do your ads avoid misleading inferences? Misleading advertising is among the three questionable business practices that most adult consumers consider to be always wrong.

6. Do your advertised terms agree with the facts? An advertisement as a whole may be misleading even though every sentence separately considered is literally true.

7. Is your advertising easy to understand without asterisks and fine print? Asterisks should not be used as a means of contradicting or substantially changing the meaning of an advertising statement.

8. Do you believe your own comparative pricing claims? You should be able to substantiate all claims made in the ad.

9. Would you be attracted by what your ad says? If it is not attractive to you, it most likely will not be attractive to your customers.

BBB’s Code of Advertising is available online at www.bbb.org.

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