Scammed by My Little Sister: Friendship Bracelets and Veblenian Goods
I learned a lesson that day
In fifth grade, I was crazy about friendship bracelets. After learning how to make them, I even tried to sell some.
When I offered them for 5 cents apiece, nobody bought them. But one day, my little sister Willow insisted on drawing up the âpricing menu,â as she called it, and she mistakenly wrote $5 instead of 5 cents.
That day, I sold three bracelets.
The iron law of demand states that demand decreases when the price increases.
Except sometimes, itâs not true.
âA Veblen good is a good for which demand increases as the price increases because of its exclusive nature and appeal as a status symbol.ââââInvestopedia
Veblen goods are named after Thorstein Veblen (1857â1929), an economist who âcoined the term conspicuous consumption, which he defined as spending more money on goods than they are worth.â
Sometimes called Veblenian, examples of Veblen goods include luxury cars, haute couture clothing, champagne bottles sold in fancy nightclubs, and genius-tier subscriptions to my Substack.
Youâre not buying the product. Youâre buying the experience.
And by experience, I mean the pleasure you get from other peopleâs jealousy at seeing you driving the fabulous car and drinking the overpriced champagne in your VIP area while reading exclusive stories on Substack, thanks to the perks you get from the Genius Tier.
Somehow, my clumsily made and overpriced friendship bracelets had become Veblenian.
As I reluctantly conceded, Willow was at least partially responsible for my newfound riches, and it was only fair to share the profits with her.
I proposed to pay her share in friendship bracelets, and she agreed. I then offered to sell her some more friendship bracelets for the heavily discounted price of 50 cents apiece. She bargained hard, and we settled on twenty-three bracelets for $10.
Thanks to Willow, I now had $25 and zero bracelets.
I was proud of myself. For once, I had successfully scammed my sister.
Or so I thought.
She went to grandma and complained that I had sold her friendship bracelets for ten times the price, as proven by a Polaroid she had taken of the â5 cents apiece price.â I couldnât deny it as I had signed the picture when she pretended to be a fan, asking for an autograph. She also mentioned unpaid design work (the âpricing menuâ) and abuse of a dominant position in the friendship bracelet market.
I should have seen that last point coming when she bought my stock. But, as always with Willow, everything was obvious only in retrospect.
Grandma was our SEC, and her rulings were iron.
One could appeal, but unless your case was as strong as a chimera half-rottweiler half-piranha, it wasnât worth the hassle.
Grandma forbade me from selling friendship bracelets for the rest of the year and granted exclusivity to Willow. Moreover, I was to provide her with additional bracelets at no charge until she got her missing 177 bracelets. (For those interested, my sister had bought 23 bracelets for $10 when she should have received 200 based on the 5 cents price.) I also had to pay Willow $5 for the design and $10 for interest and compensatory damages.
After the ruling, I was left with $10 and an unfilled order of 177 bracelets. It could have been worse.
Willow waited a few weeks before executing her plan. She didnât need the time but enjoyed watching me making friendship bracelets she knew she wouldnât use.
Once I delivered the last of the 177 I owed her, she gave one to Mister Chris, the Ăźber popular first-grade teacher, and he kindly agreed to wear it for a week.
She then sold ten bracelets for $10 apiece to the richest of her clueless classmates with the guarantee she wouldnât sell any more of these bracelets for the next six months. Exclusivity has a price.
But she never sold the rest of the friendship bracelets. Instead, sheâs been giving them back to me one by one for my Birthdays.
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I have one of these bracelets and it's been doing wonders for my Instagram side-hustle as a hand model. You can have it back for the right price.
LOOOOOOOOL!!! Wow, what kind of family did you grow up in? Iron fist is right!
It never ceases to amaze me how many ways you come up with to ask people to pay your subscription fee đ How is it working for you?