Kim Gaskill remembers waiting in line for Black Friday as a kid, when it felt special. Now that sales stretch across weeks and months, the event has lost its punch. She argues businesses need scarcity and uniqueness to make customers actually care.
It is a beautiful day here in Bentonville, Arkansas, and it is Black Friday. I'm Kim Gaskill and this is the Daily Spark. That's right, it is Black Friday, that day when everybody goes crazy, heads spin around, traffic's a mess, pocketbooks are open, and shelves are packed, at least for a little while until everybody rips everything off of them. I can remember as a kid my mom would get us up at midnight. Now I grew up in Nebraska and it was freezing by the end of November, so we would have to bundle up and get ready to stand out in those lines for 4 or 5 hours until the stores opened, waiting to get that perfect deal, that once a year opportunity to get that toy or that game or that electronic. Gift that we've been waiting for all year. But I don't do it anymore. It's changed for me. It's not so special anymore. It's not just Black Friday. They start pushing it back to Thursday night, then Thursday noon, then Wednesday night. Some stores start offering their Black Friday deals on Monday, and they do it all week long. Black Friday isn't just that one day, that one day of anticipation, waiting to have that special event, that special day. When we started doing more online shopping, we started telling the marketers online that they needed to do something, so then we had Cyber Monday and Tech Tuesday. It's not special anymore. It runs on forever. All it is is just a big marketing push for the holiday season. When things become watered down, when things aren't special or unique anymore, people lose interest. It's not that big a deal to show up anymore. Oh, I can get it another time. It'll be at a better price later. They're always having sales. I know you guys have heard that stuff. You've probably said that stuff. So in your business, are you staying unique? Are you being special in what you do? Do you make it that event that people are anticipating showing up for because they know there's a scarcity to it? It's not around all the time. They can't just get it anytime they want. Make it special, make it unique, make it an event that they can build a memory around and talk about for years, like we do with those cold, long mornings standing in line with my mom, my grandma, my aunts, my sister. We all have memories of those special days. They only came once a year. Now it's not special anymore. So think about the things that are not special anymore, that you've watered down, you've spread out, you've taken the uniqueness away from, and see if you can get that back. That's it for today. I'll see you again tomorrow on another Daily Spark.
