Doomsday sale! ...the beginning

Recently, a cross-section of businesses tried to sell off their products in the month of June before Goods and Services Tax (GST) set in. No one left any stone unturned to woo customers to buy stuff that the poor clients would have otherwise done well without had the lucrative pre-GST sale not been around. I myself bought twenty quantities of some very useless stuff just because they were selling three useless items for the price of one useless item and now I don’t know what to do with even one of them useless items…My point is, it seemed like everyone was in a race to clock in maximum business before “GST got live” as if something draconian would happen to the product’s prices afterwards…thus playing on the consumer’s fear psychosis for own profits.

Also, do you recall the time when rumours of increase in salt and sugar prices led to panic buying in some areas of the country. People wanted to hoard a stock pile such that their houses had been converted into salt godowns and sugar warehouses.

When 500 and 1,000 rupee notes ceased to be legal tender after an unscheduled address by the PM, the announcement led to frenzy among some people wanting to convert their cash into Gold. That spurred some jewellers to boost prices of gold by as much as 30 per cent over normal ranges. Likewise the queues in front of ATMs were longer as people feared the machines will run out of cash soon, with youngsters rising up at times hitherto unknown to their kind. I remember that I woke up so early to rush to the ATM one day, that I almost thought it was all happening in my dream until the guy behind me pinched(read punched) me because I was carrying five ATM cards on me ;)

Thinking of all this I couldn’t help but wonder as to what would happen if suddenly NASA announced that an asteroid was on a collision course with our planet and that an apocalypse was waiting to happen. I know many of us wouldn’t care about the apocalypse thing and would just leave it on to the NASA brains and Mr Trump to do their jobs…while some others would watch the movie “Armageddon” one more time in hope of stealing some survival tips, Hollywood style. But If you frankly tell me “Hey its doomsday ‘tomorrow’, what do you want to do”…I would just tell them“Excellent, the in laws were coming over tomorrow.” (Just in case my in laws read this!)

Yet have you ever wondered what our smart and opportunistic business centres would do with an apocalypse around the corner. Would they still go on frenzy to encash it all and be quick to announce a doomsday SALE! If you ask me I truly think so they would…So let’s see what a doomsday sale would be like. But since the doomsday is not happening any time soon just wait for the next week’s article- Doomsday Sale!…the conclusion. I am not trying to induce any suspense over here only that the topic format is inspired from Bahubali…the conclusion.

PIC FOR REPRESENTATION PURPOSE ONLY