I discovered some great marketing while helping a friend move last weekend.
I’m not talking about fancy advertising or a slick viral campaign. Nope, this was just good old “selling the right thing in the right place at the the right time.”
I call it the U-Haul Mini-bar.
At the back of the truck we rented there was a dolly (or hand truck, depending on where you are from) and a package of furniture pads. Both were strapped securely to the wall.
Each one was covered with a sales pitch and price information.
Finally, there were green plastic ties that had to be snapped in order to access the items.
If the ties were broken, you get charged. It’s as simple as that. Just take what you need and they’d add it to your bill.
The hand truck was $7 and the furniture pads were $5. I think both prices were pretty reasonable (especially compared to a $6 bottle of water found in a traditional mini-bar). I’d love to see data showing how often each one is used.
Overall, I love this upsell tactic because it’s a really simple, yet very effective, way to solve a customer’s problem. You may have snubbed the idea of moving pads while renting the truck, but after hearing your spouse tell you for the 12th time not to scratch the furniture - they may start to look like a good idea.
Brilliant.
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I took some time off and headed out to Virgina Beach last week. It was nice not to have an agenda. I really enjoyed doing a whole lot of nothing.
Anyway, we stumbled upon Bloom supermarket and were thoroughly impressed. In addition to hosting a Redbox out front (this is the second vacation in a row that we’ve picked up a $1 movie to watch at the end of our day) they had something incredible on their shopping carts.
Ready for this?
A map of the store.
How cool is that? Being a resort town, they probably get a fair amount of tourist traffic. It makes a lot of sense to show people where everything is. In fact, it makes so much sense that I’m not sure why I haven’t seen it before.
Another cool thing about the carts is that they had two sizes: standard and mini. Again, Brilliant!
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Tony at Zappos twittered last night about seeing one of those crane games that usually retrieve stuffed animals and candy. This one, however, allowed you to catch live lobsters. According to one sign: You catch ‘em, we cook ‘em, and you eat ‘em.
I love unique product ideas, and I’m pretty impressed by this twist on a tired classic. Apparently it does the job, too. According to Tony:
“Lobster game machine at bar is brilliant. Watched people spend $20 in past hour trying to catch a live lobster. “
A little web research brought me to the the site of Lobster Zone, Inc. The company claims to have over 300 such games placed around the US and has been around for roughly 10 years.
The “press section” of the site has an interesting article written back in ‘98. It says that many of the machines (placed primarily in seafood restaurants at the time) were making over $1000 a week. It also estimated that it took a patron 18 tries with the crane before they mastered it.
The price was only $2 a try back then, and after 10 years -it still hasn’t budged. So there, quit your complaining about inflation.
Here’s a YouTube video of the crane in action: Lobster Game
