What is it? Well back in the days of working in retail, the street I worked on had an event once a year where all the shops were open until midnight. I was laughing to myself when I got told this was happening the first year I was working there. The area around where I worked was an aged area. I expected no one at ALL to come as by 6pm (sometimes we closed at 7pm) sales dropped to zero.

What happened?

I was wrong, as simple as that. The street was a solid stream of people as opposed to the one or two stray customers. The shops were full to the brim, lines spilling out onto the sidewalks. Buskers entertained the pedestrians, and music filled the air, it was really an amazing night. Let's just say sales hit the roof!

Why?

Well I was thinking about it the night after, and the reason why it was really so packed and busy was because it was special. The streets closing times were the standard 5 or 5 30 pm every day for the WHOLE year except this ONE night. The fact that it happened only once a year made it a whole lot more special than if it happened every day. Compare this to the late night Fridays. It happens every week. It gets boring. There’s nothing special to it, because it’s always there. The shopping centres that open late on Fridays find that they don’t get the rush they want because of the late closing hours. The same principle applies for other things as well. Let’s take car manufactures for a minute. Toyota produce cars like no tomorrow, when a new one comes out or when you see one on the road there is no special feeling. No sense of amazement and that you have seen something special. Now let’s compare this to Ferrari. When they release a car, magazines are PACKED full of info about them, if you see one on the road your mouth drops and you wish you had one. By releasing products slower, companies can actually make more of a profit. It’s simple, but it works. The less accessible, the more special.

What other examples can you find?