I went to a book store last week, to do some last-minute Christmas shopping, and I had to smile at this display of Christmas cards, situated right at the front of the store.
I go to this book store often to get coffee in their café and use their Internet connection, and so I remember seeing those Christmas cards, for the first time, several weeks ago. At that time, probably the beginning of November or close to it, the cards were priced at full retail: close to twenty dollars for a box of fifteen, if I remember correctly. I remember shaking my head and thinking, People would be crazy to pay that much for cards.
A couple of weeks later, all the boxes of cards had sale stickers on them, which read: “ONLY $15!” It was a discount, sure; but ten dollars? For a box of Christmas cards? And a couple of weeks later, they had been reduced again, down to ten dollars a box. And then this past week, during my last-minute Christmas shopping, the cards were bargain-basement priced: three dollars a box. And people were picking through them like crazy.
That’s a decent price, to be sure, but it just made me think: all the silly little things that we spend money on, that we really don’t have to…it’s ludicrous. Why, for example, would people leap at the chance to buy these Christmas cards for even three dollars a box, with only fifteen cards per box, when they could get ecards for free, on gotfreecards,com, and send as many as they like?
I suppose there’s always going to be a market for people willing to spend money on things they don’t need, but still…