Up for sale: How modern marketing gets you to buy a whole lot of stuff you don’t really want or need

Article Summary

This article explains the phenomenon of zero-plus sale which is revolutionising marketing. The author delves deep into the concept of these sales to decode how do businesses make money even after providing us with sales.A zero plus sale is explained as: if you shopped for goods worth Rs 5,000, you had to pay only Rs 2,000 – and you got that back as well by way of free clothes, gift vouchers and cashback.So you ended up spending zero, but came away on the plus side with a lot of clothes, vouchers and a cash refund.

The secret to the success of businesses is that due to these zero-sum sales, we’re conditioned to rush wherever and whenever a sale is announced, irrespective of whether we actually want or need what’s being offered. The article concludes on the note that, thanks to the conditioned reflex of the zero-sum sale, we fall for all sales.