Some unethical practices in sales profession...

My daughter recently asked me if there were any unethical practices in sales profession. Obviously, there are.

Temptation and greed might lure a salesperson into recommending a product from among other alternatives, that might not be the best for the customer, but pays a higher commission to the salesperson. The salesperson's ethical standard might be compromised when there is a conflict of interest such as this.

Another situation involves overselling or forced selling. At times, a salesperson might be under pressure to meet his sales or performance quota or to qualify for certain awards or incentives to travel, all sound too familiar, I believe. Such desperation might drive the salesperson to even sell something the customer does not really need. There are even situations where the salesperson opts to pay for the customer first in order to close the sale in time to meet his personal objectives.

There are also scenarios where the salesperson does not disclose the fine prints or shortcomings of the product intentionally. That would mislead the customer into making a decision which he would not have made if the information had been disclosed to him.

It could be hard to detect such unethical practices because usually they appear to be legally right, but something many people might not realise is that, not all things done legally are ethical.