Saturday 21 March 2020

Panic Marketing


I thought of a novel marketing strategy yesterday and implemented it with the small stock of toilet paper from the management WC.



You get a free Nissan Leaf EV with every purchase of a pack of 16 toilet rolls costing £21,795 . It got some admiring glances from passing motorists but, unfortunately, no-one was desperate enough to take up the offer. They will in time.

We've has 8 straight days of no-one coming into the showroom and buying a car. In normal circumstances we're selling 15 cars a week. The previous record was 6 straight days during the Financial Crisis.

The saving grace is that with our kind of discretionary purchase, the demand will generally be pent up and not completely lost forever, unlike the restaurant business. The problem with that will be servicing the spike once the crisis is over, which may necessitate a slimming down of the sales process somehow to speed up the process.

I fully expect we'll close down on Monday for the duration.

Had an epiphany yesterday. Panic buyers are possibly not all simply greedy bastards - they're irrationally frightened. You can help alleviate their fright by not re-posting some of the weird shit you see on Facebook. Panic buying is fright; panic selling is greed, as they say in the stock market. Brexit was caused by the same kind of irrational fear engendered by false tropes. Fear is a powerful motivator; truth doesn't have the same emotional appeal.

One bright thing on the horizon is a forecasted week of wall-to-wall sunshine and me being able to get some grass cutting in. It is currently at a length where even the ride-on mower will struggle to cut it.

I must say Rishi Sunak looked infinitely more like a PM than Boris in yesterday's briefing. Boris simply blathers and blusters, saying nothing of any importance, relevance or weight. Sunak is one to watch - he'll go far. Boris, on the other hand, has been promoted way beyond his capability, and it shows - glaringly - like a rabbit caught in headlights.


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