This great low price only while supplies last!!!

The way sales work:

You get the sales flier for your local stores. You read in big, blazing letters that the item EVERYBODY is buying this year, the item that will make your hair shinier, your teeth whiter, your house larger, your dress size smaller, your kitchen cleaner, your friends more stylish, you more popular, this amazing treasure is available in stores for a limited time only, no more available at this price once those in stock are all gone.

Until you read the ad, it had not occurred to you that your hair wasn't shiny enough, your teeth were too dull, your house too small, and your dress size too large. Okay, scratch that. You probably are bothered by your size. But you didn't know you had to buy something to fix it. You thought you just needed some garden variety self control. Now you know you really will never be quite whole without these new things. If you like to think of yourself as frugal, you do without most of them anyway, but you resolve to keep your teeth covered when you smile, to get some new friends, and get that kitchen whipped into shape just as soon as you buy the three new cleaning products you just know are the Holy Grail of cleaning products- they will work so well you won't ever actually have to work in your kitchen again. And you'll watch for those previously unheard of products at thrift shops and yard sales.

The first line of attack in these ads is to foster discontentment. You have needs you did not know about and you have not the means for solving those problems without these special products you also did not know about five minutes ago.

Some of the ads will say they only have, say, ten times, or fifty, or a hundred of the item, available. When these are gone you won't be able to get another one at this price anywhere. Not even for ready money. Hurray now, come on out and buy yours while this incredible deal is still available. They can't hold it forever. TODAY ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

The human mind is a bizarre and strange little region, and this is the second line of attack (I am not mentioning things like color, photographic angles, and market tested logos and such like). Fear of losing something is always greater, or at least more urgent, than the desire to gain something- that's why sales promotions have time limits, limited numbers of the item, and why they stress an approach that tells customers they will 'lose,' miss out on something, if they don't buy it now.

"If I don't buy it now I might not get to buy it at all" is a powerfully seductive line of thinking, and it seems to work on most of us even when we could also be telling ourselves, "If I don't buy it now, I won't care a few weeks, days, or even minutes from now. I do not need it and I never wanted it until I was told I might not be able to buy it."

When you are confronted with an ad campaign watch closely for those hooks that make the need seem more urgent to you, that highlight your risk of losing the item if you do not buy it NOW. Any 'now or never' approach should set off alarm bells in your pocket book, as somebody is trying to separate you from its contents.