Hard Sell Urgency/Scarcity Leads to Death

Sorry for this day-after-Thanksgiving darkness, but a major story on various Internet news sites this morning caught our attention making a powerful hard sell point:

Judith saw a Wal-Mart ad on AOL indicating a Black Friday sale.

The original meaning of the term “Black Friday”came from a market crash in September, 1869, when some financiers failed to corner the gold market. The crash was followed by a depression. So Black Friday came to generally mean a day when a public calamity occurs

More recently, the term Black Friday refers to the day after Thanksgiving during which retailers create discounted sales and make enough sales to put themselves “into the black ink.”

The Wal-Mart ad indicated that the sale would begin at 5 AM and last until 11AM that morning, and that prices would be seriously discounted during that window.

By limiting the buying time, Wal-Mart purposely manufactured urgency and ratcheted up the frenzy by limiting the discounts to only that period creating a manufactured scarcity.

And the result?

Wal-Mart shoppers break down the doors of a store on Long Island, NY, to rush in for their Black Friday discounts, and a worker is trampled to death.

 A Lack of Care and Conscience

The point here is Wal-Mart’s lack of care and conscience in its treatment of its customers as well as the absence of consciousness on the part of the consumers—both mired in a rabid materialism that permeates to the core our entire commercial system.

Wal-Mart issued a statement that “The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority.” That’s a statement to be expected. After all, what else could Wal-Mart say? And then added “Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families at this difficult time.” Again, expected.

But where is Wal-Mart’s awareness that they are responsible for the rush. The squeeze they created was a conscious marketing strategy intended to create the very spasm that resulted.

Granted, this is a yearly event practiced by Wal-Mart and other retailers and this death is an anomaly. But the deeper issue here is the blatant disregard for the hysteria such fabricated rushes are intended to foment. How does Wal-Mart perceive its own customers? What care for those customers does Wal-Mart put into its plan for Black Friday? What criterion does Wal-Mart use as it employs the most emotionally agitating techniques to fire up the sense of loss and failure if the consumer doesn’t get there at down and get in on the bargains?

As many do, Wal-Mart can claim that they are not responsible for how people behave. And technically that’s true. But they, as well as others, do everything they can, using the most sophisticated techniques available, to create a frantic need in their customers—a need that will put Wal-Mart in the black..

Breaking Down the Doors

And what of the consumers? What need do they have to literally break down the doors and burst into the store like their lives depended on it?

It was reported that the worker who fell and was trampled was passed over by the mad throng of determined shoppers. He was stomped to death. But many of the stompers still made sure to grab their bargains.

Can they be faulted? Absolutely.

In This Together

We don’t mean to excuse or absolve either Wal-Mart or the rabid buyers, but we’re all in this together. Everyone’s looking to not lose. Wal-Mart its profits. The consumers their bargains. So it’s psychologically easy to froth up and charge. As though it really is about life and death—death in this case.

The lack of consciousness and conscience with respect to our fellow humans is so vivid, and so easily excited—especially when the possibility of loss is fabricated and made to seem real—that we truly are emotionally vulnerable. We are relegated to a state of grasping and grappling for what? A $50 discount? A $300 discount?

And when we get the discount, are we saved? Are we redeemed? Are we acquitted of some shadow guilt that would consume us if we did not snag and snatch up the very special bargain, available ONLY Between 5 AM and 11 AM?

There is a well of darkness in Black Friday that not only goes unnoticed, but is advertised as a well of light, and who doesn’t want to be lit up?

Let’s Make a Difference . . . Because It’s All in the Connection,

Judith & Jim