salam. pls tell if the following marketing strategy is Halal or involves deception. it is based on human psychology.suppose one wants to sell in his shop a watch for $1000. To trick the customers into buying it without bargaining, he puts it beside another watch with a price tag of $3000 (also his product) to make the price of the former appear cheaper. this leads to more sales and is a sales strategy. can we use it since we are just appealing to customer psychology ? and also there’s not a strict limit for profit in Islam.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
There is nothing that prevents using the method of marketing that you mentioned in order to attract customers to buy the product. This is because it does not involve anything prohibited like deception or trickery.
In Islam, there is no set maximum or minimum amount of profit that one can make. However, it is recommended that one facilitates buying and be lenient with people so that he would be acting in accordance to the Prophetic teachings. Jaabir ibn ‘Abdullah, may Allaah be pleased with him, narrated that the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, said: “May Allah show mercy to a man who is lenient when he buys, sells and demands repayment of loans.” [Al-Bukhari]
Allah knows best.