During the presentation on the sale of outdoor gear items I was struck by how much companies use the ‘only available for a limited period of time’ tactic to sell items. I can recall numerous commercials in which the viewer is told that he or she will get a discount if they call within the next 5 or 10 minutes. The thing that always struck me as strange was that these ads seemed to be on for hours, proving that the items were not available for a limited period of time. They were always available and probably for the same price. The ads seem to have been created to hook people into to watching them while flipping through channels, to look at an item, which in reality they probably didn’t even really want or need, and to buy it impulsively. The time constraint essentially limits the amount of time you spend actually logically thinking about your purchase. You end up getting caught up in the thrill of the race to buy, and in many cases lose all sense of reality or real needs.