What was the point?

[celticdragonfly]

I was out running some last minute errands prepping for FenCon, with Maggie, and we drove past a U-Haul place. I saw they had a sign up, "Special on Tulsa, trucks starting at $116"

This made me think - what on EARTH is the point of U-Haul having a special like that? I mean, yeah, if you just so happened to be about to move to Tulsa, lovely, good for you. But that can't be a very large group of people in Fort Worth. What, do they think there's people out there who will see this sign, and then think to themselves, "Boy, I'd been living here just fine, but you know, Tulsa sounds interesting, I think I'll drop everything and move to Tulsa this weekend."

Reminds me of a Gallagher bit (the comedian, no relation, okay?) when he was talking about the settlers coming in to America. He talked about the covered wagon, "and if your covered wagon broke, and you were too dumb or lazy to fix it, that's where you stayed. There's all these towns with a little park at the edge of town with two broken wagon wheels. What, you think anybody set out for Tulsa?"

Comments

[sraun]

At a guess? They're hoping for a lightning strike. They've got too many vehicles in stock that are dedicated one-way, and need to get some to Tulsa, where there aren't enough. And they're hoping to find someone to pay them, rather than having to pay someone to drive them up.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Ha! We are twins again! Posting at the same time, saying much the same thing. [Twilight Zone music, Doo DOO Doo doo...]

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

My guess would be that they had a large truck rental reservation coming FROM Tulsa and needed to get some of their trucks back there by a certain time.

A lot of people live there and love it, like Mercedes Lackey and her menagerie.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

A lot of people live there and love it

Oh, yes. But it would have seemed silly to me for them to have a special to just about anywhere - who makes a decision to move on that basis? - but with Tulsa I had some more joking I could do.

basic economics

[p-o-u-n-c-e-r.livejournal.com]

They're hoping that some marginal customer teetering on the sharp hairy edge of deciding to hire the truck instead of the trailer (or hiring a U-Haul at all instead of piling the load in the back of their personal pickup truck a few feet higher) will teeter on over to the "rent" side.

Pricing is often aimed at the marginal buyer. And advertised prices more so.

The side-effect is that somebody moving in some other direction besides Tulsa who has no idea of the "regular" price may be lured into an inquiry. "I'd like to hire a closed truck to St Louis, instead of exposing Grandma's antiques to a possible rain on my pickup. But I sure don't wanna spend over $200. Hmmm. It says it's only $116 for Tulsa -- maybe I CAN afford St. Louis. I'd better go ask..."