Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Buy 1, Get the shop free

Consumers today are spoilt by the sheer number of choices that are available to them in the market. From a small household item to the passenger car, we have thousands of options for each item in thousands of price bands. In a mainly consumerist soceity like India, this means that the companies will get richer and the consumers will get poorer. And from time immemorial, a popular way of attracting customers is the legendary 'free' offer. My earliest experiences of this 'free'fall are the tiny animal models that they used to give with the binaca toothpaste. I used to take more paste than that is needed to brush my small teeth to somehow finish it off and buy the next one so that I can add a new model to my collection of miniature animals. For your info, my teeth got its current yellowish appearance right from the day binaca stopped giving those animal models free. So, now you know whom to blame for my bad breath and yellow teeth. Another of my favourite free items were the tattoos supplied free with bubblegums some years back. I still remember how in 6th standard I raised quite a few eyebrows in school with that crazy tattoo of a gal on my arm. Thankfully for me, those kind of tattoos didn't survive beyond 2 days. Then, there were such bizarre free offers like 'buy a soap, get a pen free'. And that evergreen offer of 'Marry a girl. Get a child free'.

All those are out of fashion now. Now its a case of 'buy 50, get 100'. This happened last week. Me and my friend visited the brand factory here to buy a shirt for him. As we entered the shop what caught our eye was a 'buy 1, get 1 free' board. After some frantic searching, we selected 2 shirts and started walking to the billing counter. Thats when we saw the board 'buy 2, get 3 free'. WOW. We already had 2 shirts in our hand, now its only a matter of taking another 3. After one more hour, we had 5 nice looking shirts in our hand. Again we started walking to the cash counter. This time what amazed us was the 'buy 5, get 5 free' banner. Thats when we started thinking about the clever sales strategy that they've employed in the shop. They had actually made a guy who planned to buy just 1 shirt to take home 10 shirts. Yes, if he had taken those 5 shirts, he would be having 10 shirts with him. These kind of offers are irresistible to most consumers. They just go on piling up the clothes in their shopping carts as was evident from a 15 minute observation of the shoppers there. If any guy decides to go through all the offers they are giving, he may end up owning almost all the clothes in the shop. Its a clever way of luring the consumer into buying more of their products and thus cleaning up their shelves. And most of us fall for that. Anyway, in the end he controlled himself and bought only 2 shirts. So, beware when you go to shops like these next time. Buy only what you planned to buy. Don't fall flat for the seemingly awesome offers.

your crusader Praveen

9 comments:

Si_Lee said...

ha ha ... u caught their bluff eh ?
he he u r right .. and do you know a lot of money goes into research behind what kind of ads and offers wud lure what kind of a consumer ...come to see the other side .. a guy who cud never buy 10 shirts will be able to as well ... so it has both sides to it dear ..
nice post .. it was a lil humorous too..

thomas said...

'Marry a girl. Get a child free'. -- LOL!

Hey, don't go alone for shopping, go with some 3 or 4 buddies, then these offers will be profitable for us right.

Akshaya Kamalnath said...

LOL...marry a girl, get a child free???...the feminist in me shall not take it!!!
Good post...for your sake I really hope binaca starts giving those animal models free again;-P

Praveen said...

@sid
yeah.. agreed it has its own advantages as you pointed out. but in the end its anothr way of fooling the customers.

@tom
yeah, thts our usual strategy. this time, 2 of us went as he had to buy this shirt urgently:P..idiot..

@akshaya
hope the feminist in u have a humorous side too.. else am doomed:P
yeah, am thinking of writing a letter to binaca:D

nishanth nair said...

hi praveen
thanx for dropping in..

blogged u too..
thnx

Nandana R Pillai said...

I loved the subject line "Buy 1, Get the shop free"..LOL
You said it rite, Brand Factory is famous for such kinda seemingly lucrative offers. But many a times I've been fooled by these offers.I get swept away by this buy2, get 3 sort stuffs, and without thinking much wud pick up all tht which attracts me..finally only when i reach the billing counter, wud they say tht those offers r not valid for this particular product or that one.Being hesitant to return what I've taken,I wud rather end up in paying for all of them

kartoos said...

ive given you back the award, now people would think its a deal between us..hehe:D

Praveen said...

@nandana
they r aiming ppl just like u:D

@kartoos..
aalkkarkku enthu venelum parayallo:P

Kartz said...

:D Good 'un bro... Rollin' you in...