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Sign of the “Quick-Win” Times
How shortcuts have become a way of life
The police evacuated part of a shopping mall after a run on a special edition watch. When the doors opened at 9 in the morning, people rushed in. Within minutes, the hallway near the watch store was packed with hundreds of people.
It was a strange sight in an age of online shopping. People were pushing through a real hallway, in a real mall, for a real object they could hold in their real hands.
They were hoping to buy a special edition pocket watch from the collaboration between Swatch and the Swiss high-end watchmaker Audemars Piguet.
Then chaos.
People started to lose control. Pushing. Shouting. Arguing. The police had to step in to restore order.
But this wasn’t the surprising part. When people want something, they can do weird things.
What surprised me was something else.
Many people in the crowd were looking for a quick win, openly admitting they planned to resell the watch on the same day.
A seventeen-year-old boy explained that “there aren’t any opportunities to earn money this fast.” He was eager to sell the watch quickly, believing he could get $10,000 for it, even though the retail price was about $400.
