A proud father went on a serious shopping mission to get his son the perfect present, Guitar Hero III for the Nintendo Wii. He finally got his hands on the prized object, and upon bringing it home, found his beloved angel son smoking ganja in the back yard with some stoners.
In his fury, the dad put the game up for sale on eBay... along with the reason for the sale.
"If you want to help ruin this kid's holiday spirit even more, bid on the auction here," he wrote.
As a result of description, it caused bidders to wildly inflate the price (it usually retails for $89.99) as a show of parental support. An Austrlain buyer shelled out $9,100,01 on December 10. You know how much weed you can get for $9,000?
What's Driving This Trend
- Resale Value-based Sales
- The power of a compelling product narrative to drive up resale value should not be underestimated and could be leveraged by sellers to run auctions.
- Parental Influence on Consumer Purchases
- Parents' emotional influence on their children's purchases can be a strong motivator that brands and retailers leverage to improve sales.
- Social Proof and Exaggeration in Online Auctions
- Social proof is an incredibly powerful tool that can be leveraged by sellers to massively inflate product prices as was seen in the case of the father's reasoning for selling on eBay.
Who This Affects Most
- Online Auctions
- Online auction sites have opportunities to leverage emotional stories about products to increase site traffic, bidding, and revenue.
- Video Game Industry
- Video game companies and retailers can create compelling narratives or causes around their products to create hype outside gaming communities and attract wider audiences.
- Retail Industry
- Retailers can improve product marketing in ways that connect emotionally with the family dynamics and encourage holiday spending on thoughtful gifts.
