Jeff of Side Salad had a garage sale over the weekend. His take on loss-leader marketing:
She came flying up in her compact car, got out and, with laser directness, went right for this frame with four $1 bills in it. I got this once as a present. I hated it, quite frankly, and never put it up on my wall. I wasn’t sure what the gift-giver was trying to signify, since I wasn’t going into business and I wasn’t exactly a collector of low denominations in sequential order. So I sold it. For $3. She actually made money buying it! The woman who picked it up thought I was nuts, but that’s how bad I wanted to sell stuff that day. Plus, it encouraged her to buy other stuff that was worth more money.