Friday, January 15, 2016

The Price Of Nothing

Why would 30,000 Americans pay $6 for a box of bull poop? According to one company that sold bull poop on Black Friday, you could “fertilize your garden….or surprise a loved one with the gift of poop.”

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the US and is a time when stores across the country have big sales. Since 2005, it has been the biggest shopping day of the year in the US. It is even starting to spread to other countries including the UK, Mexico and Romania.

Thanksgiving in the US is a holiday where families get together and spend quality time with each other. Black Friday is 100% commercialism, and some people think it is getting out of hand. Recently there have been some negative reactions to the shopping madness.

A card game company called Cards Against Humanity had the ultimate anti-Black Friday sale in 2013. They took their card game off the website and replaced it with boxes of bull poop labeled “Bullshit” and sold it for six bucks a pop. They ended up selling 30,000 boxes of poop and making $180,000 in one day.

Even though the company was very clear about exactly what they were selling, many people peppered them with questions about what was really in the boxes they were selling. Company Co-founder Max Temkin’s reply on Twitter was priceless. ”If you buy the poop expecting it to be something else that’s not poop, you’re actually buying a valuable life lesson for $6.”

In 2013, instead of discounting their product like almost every other US store does on Black Friday, they raised their price by $5.

Temkin says he hates Black Friday. In 2015, his anti-Black Friday sale was even more audacious. He sold nothing. It wasn’t even a box containing nothing. It was actually nothing.

It wasn’t some tricky scam either. Here is what they wrote in their Nothing Sale FAQ:

If I give you $5, will I actually get anything in exchange?
We’re so glad you asked! No.

Why are you selling nothing?
On Black Friday, everybody is selling something. We’re the only company to offer the superior Black Friday experience of buying nothing.

At the end of the day, they sold $71,145 of nothing. Cards Against Humanity has a history of giving millions to charity. In 2014, they sent their Black Friday Bull poop profits to an NGO that provides cows to developing countries. In 2015, they decided to be a little selfish. They just gave the nothing sale profits to their employees.

The post The Price Of Nothing appeared first on Deep English.

from Deep English » Blog http://deepenglish.com/2016/01/the-price-of-nothing/


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