Jul 17 2008
200 nipples
It is well known that the 3 great forces behind the buying decision are:
1. Drive for exclusivity
2. Punishment for not having something (lost oportunity)
3. Reward for having something
We live in a time where basically everyone can have anything, they only need to pay for it. And there are many, many ways to pay for something. Credit cards, split paiments or even saving money are ways to get there.
Having things is a easy way to tell the world where you stand, who you are. Off course there are other ways, but they usually require some work and self discipline. Having a Mac generally tells the world that you are creative, having a Rolls Royce says you’re powerfull and conservative as well as having a sports car may mean you are powerfull and are willing to take risks. Having exclusive stuff means you’re unique.
Every other week I receive an e-mail from DELL with a notebook offer. They go like: “limited offer, great notebook for only $X. Only today.” So my mind thinks: “oh, such a good oportunity! If I don’t buy it I’ll loose this chance!”.
What is Dell doing? They are using points 2 and 3. Punishment and reward. Even though *I know* they will send and e-mail like this every other week I just keep reading them.
Now imagine a biz model to use the 3 points above: exclusivity, reward and punishment. That is exaclty what 200nipples.com does. They sell t-shirts (exclusive ones) in a limited edition fashion. Every edition has only 100 copies so number 1 costs $1 and number 100 costs $100.
Punishment: if I don’t hurry I won’t have number 1, or 69 or my lucky number and so on. Reward: I get my exclusive t-shirt, thus I am unique. Punishment: if I don’t hurry I’ll loose it.
Genious hun? So why don’t E-bay or Amazon do it? Because this strategy will only work on products that you can make many different editions (it works for Ferraris - in fact Ferraris are numbered…) and to really make money you should be abble to repeat it many, many times. That is: you need scale or to sell Ferraris! (more on that in the comming posts)