Newsletter 007.
Is everything always on sale now (except rent, gas, and groceries)?
Clearance Sales used to mean something in this Country.
90% of the emails I get nowadays, are overtly desperate flash sales, and what seems like year-round Cyber Monday deals.
All I see on instagram are stores and brands selling off their wares for what I assume is maybe even less than it cost to make the thing.
It’s sad, gross, and perpetual.
The owner’s dog’s birthday, 30% off.
Happy National Avocado Day from all of us at Stanley, please enjoy 30% off.
The worst one, “found a few of these when we were spring cleaning”, 35% off.
How are we even supposed to be able to tell who’s rich and who’s not any more if Stone Island is half-price at pretty much all of their stockists, almost all the time.
I should have led with this…
I absolutely should have started off saying…
This all comes from a place of great empathy.
I used to run a retail store of sorts.
Really really poorly. It ended up closing in a very public and embarrassing way.
We had an absurd amount of sales though, for sure once a month, when rent was due.
Usually mid-month too actually, net30 never felt like a full 30 days.
I admit, we wished everyone a happy Record Store Day, and offered 20% off everything, in celebration of Record Store day… I think we sold 3 albums (titles) in the 7 years we were open.
where does it end though?
Who would ever pay full-price for Birkenstocks again, they’ll be on sale, with free shipping again next week.
It makes no sense to think society would ever be able to revert to paying full retail price for most things ever again.
We’ve been conditioned to get everything at such a discount, it’s been slowly encroaching on everyone for some time now.
I honestly don’t see any turning back at this point.
I have friends that own stores, and they really resent what’s happening.
I also have friends that run brands, they hate it as much (maybe even more) than my friends that run stores do.
Even a sole consumer, just a shopper, with no skin in the game…
they can’t be too happy with everything lately.
what’s the point of saving up for a new air fryer, to have it go on sale somewhere else 2 days after you’ve already mastered the perfect pizza reheating technique.
I love consuming stuff, don’t get me wrong. I think we can all agree, it’s way less fun these days though.
There’s the logic that none of this is up to the retailer at all.
It might be too-far-gone at this point. Out of their hands so to speak.
And that the extremely accelerated pace and rampant turnover of absolutely everything on earth leaves a merchant no choice but to mark things down two weeks after release as a mere means of being able to fund next week’s less than thoughtful quick-strike.
There’s also the line of thinking…
there is entirely too much stuff in the world.
way too many podcast dad-hats, way too many run club t-shirts.
the amount of physical items being made, and sold, far outweighs the demand and necessity of these products.
maybe, just maybe we all need to make fewer things, and sell what we already have for a sustainable price…
I just don’t see that happening either.
maybe we need to pump the breaks on demanding things be made and pushed out so quickly, in such abundance too.
obviously, much easier said then done.
food for thought I guess.
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Great insights Wesley and funny as well.