Getting People to Buy

This evening I hosted a Park Lane jewelry party at my house.  I do not sell the jewelry myself, but my friend does and asked if I would like to host a party which involves inviting friends and providing the location of the party.  I figured it's close to Christmas, everyone is stressed about school and what better way to relieve stress than retail therapy.  Although it was just my roommates and myself, we managed to spend a hefty amount of money.  Why? Well, the "deals" were just too good to pass up!

Without going too in depth on how this particular jewelry company works I want to share why it was so easy to spend so much.  The catalog is HUGE and I truly believe there was something in there for everyone, male/female and any age.  So how it works is if you spend $30-60, you can pick any piece of jewelry (of equal or lesser value) for only $12. If you spend $61-90 you can pick any 2 pieces (of equal or lesser value) for only $12 each plus one for free.  Then if you spend more than $90 its the same thing only 3 pieces of equal or lesser plus one for free.  The jewelry seems extremely over priced but the company is able to do that because of peoples 'Predictably Irrational' buying behaviors.

For example: my roommate found LOTS of pieces she like.  She made a list of the 6 or 7 items with prices ranging from $23-$119 (the $119 item was a watch).  Then what she did was add up enough of the lower priced items to equal $119. I think it ended up being a pair of earrings, a ring and a necklace. So, since those equaled the amount of the watch, she paid $12 for the watch, $12 for the next most expensive item, and $12 for the third most expensive item.  She was then able to pick out any piece of jewelry up to $119 value, absolutely free!  She ended up spending around $160 for 8 items which would be $20 per piece of jewelry (not that bad).

While I somewhat fell victim to buying more to save more, I couldn't help but think "what a great selling technique".  It obviously works, (both my roommates spent over $100 but ended up pleased with the quantity of new jewelry they were going to receive).  This selling technique reminded me of the experiments in the book 'Predictably Irrational' on how "FREE" affects buying behaviors and people really do buy/spend more just to receive a "free" item they may not even really need.