Little Sleepies are pajamas and play clothes for children made of bamboo cellulose.
Bethanie Taylor, 27, the mother of a five-month-old baby boy who lives in Springhill, Kansas, knows she loves Little Sleepies. “But I don’t know if I was brainwashed into it,” she said.
There is enough for demanding parents: the material is hypoallergenic, mold resistant, odor resistant and has natural UV protection. The items come in thousands of patterns and designs, which the company releases weekly. Rather than offer all those options on the company’s website, as most retailers do, Little Sleepies “drop” these baby pajamas at some point.
It’s like a 12 to 18 month sleep set is the latest pair of Nike sneakers. “Stars & Stripes” jammies, perfect for the Fourth of July, for example, became available in mid-May on a Tuesday afternoon at noon. A few days earlier, a camping pattern with bear cubs and huts fell. The company advertises when the drops happen on social media, where it has over 100,000 followers.
Each collection is limited edition, meaning there isn’t enough for everyone. Some items sell out in five minutes, so Ms. Taylor, who is a director of operations at an insurance company, takes special steps to make sure she can get what she wants.
“I set an alarm when I know a drop is coming,” she said. “Some other moms even preload gift cards into their accounts so they don’t lose the items if the checkout takes too long.”
The pajamas suit Ms Taylor’s son better than other brands she has tried. “My son is very tall and these fit him longer than the ones I would buy at the store,” she said. “I also like that bamboo is a good UV protector. I can’t put sunscreen on my son yet, so it feels good to take him outside in this.”
Then there’s the undeniable appeal of the hype.
“It’s kind of a mafia mentality,” she said. “You see them posting these new prints and all the moms on Facebook love them. You think, ‘I love this too, and they only have a limited number, so I need to get it before it sells out.’”
A range of companies, large and small and in a variety of categories, use ‘the drop’, where limited edition items are released in small numbers at any given time. Some businesses that opened during the pandemic have only sold products in this way. More established companies are turning away from more traditional sales models, such as releasing a collection each season or having a store that consistently carries merchandise, and adopt this strategy.
Marketing and behavioral experts say there are a few reasons why it works, especially now.
“What I like about product drops is that it provides an element of surprise and scarcity,” said Silvia Bellezza, a professor of marketing at Columbia Business School. “I think that excites a lot of consumers.”
She said customers were especially susceptible to this type of entertainment during the pandemic, when they were bored at home. “An interesting question would be in a year or two, is this a permanent change in the business model or are we going back to a more seasonal sales model?” she said.
It also changes consumer behavior, says Abigail Sussman, a behavioral scientist and marketing professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “It turns a decision that you might put off — maybe you’ll buy something later or not at all — into something that you have to buy now,” she said.
For smaller companies, selling a fixed amount of inventory at specific times means less overhead.
Before the pandemic, Miriam Weiskind, who lives in Brooklyn, took up her job as an art director to pursue her passion of making pizza. Her dream, like many chefs, is to open a restaurant, but the economics of doing so are daunting. So in the meantime, she started The Za Report. With a drop model, she sells her cakes twice a week at breweries and fairs.
She announces where she’ll be a few days in advance on Instagram, and there’s usually lines waiting for her when she opens. She sells 70 to 120 pies at a time, and some days they sell out within an hour.
She likes that her overheads are low and believes this sales model allows her to sell her pies at higher prices (they range from $18 to $24). “It keeps demand high and supply low,” she says. “Each cake is special because I don’t make that many, so I can ask for a lot more.”
Bear Walker, in Daphne, Ala., makes pop culture themed skateboards like Pokemon or Marvel Comics. He releases one collection every six weeks, each containing only 250 records.
By creating scarcity, Mr. Walker that he can make his product desirable. “These are high-end, handmade and difficult to make,” he said. “When someone gets one, I want them to know it’s a special piece and a bucket list item.”
Some of his drops sell out within 45 minutes, something he sees happening live. “We have a big screen in the office with a map of the world on it, and you can see people going to the websites and buying it,” he said. “I usually sit there for a few hours, just watching.”
Madison Tompkins, 28, a software developer living in Courvelle, Iowa, said the drops are just as exciting for consumers.
When a skateboard drop occurs, she blocks two hours of her day from work to make sure she gets the item she wants. “You also have to know how to do it. If you refresh the page every 10 to 15 seconds, the system thinks you’re a bot and blocks you,” she said. “It happened to me once. I wanted a board so fast that I kept refreshing.”
More established companies are also trying to capitalize on the scarcity trend.
Kate Quinn, a children’s clothing company like Little Sleepies, had been in business for 16 years, bringing seasonal collections to its website with little fanfare, before starting to use product drops in 2018 as part of a new model to sell directly to consumers. Business has grown significantly since then.
The company even started darkening its website completely a few hours before a release, something that sparks excitement. “People who know how to shop for Kate Quinn understand how it works and know how to be ready for it,” said Paul Weinstein, chief operating officer and chief financial officer. “It can be disorienting for new customers because we do these drops, and the first 10 minutes are crazy, like we’re out of items in minutes. So they say, ‘I don’t understand what just happened.’” (Er is even a second-hand market for these items.)
Mr. Weinstein said one advantage of the drops is that they offer endless social media content.
“There’s always something new to talk about,” he says. “We always have a new print coming out, we always have a new style, a new collection and a new drop.”
Ms Bellezza, of Columbia Business School, said one of the drawbacks is that it encourages more consumption, especially at a time when some in the industry are pushing “slow fashion” and the idea that consumers should “buy less but buy better.” .
“The drops do the opposite; they teach consumers to keep buying, and from a sustainability perspective, I don’t think that’s great,” she said.
And she sees this kind of consumption increasing. For example, the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia offers a “Night of Indulgence” package that guests can only purchase once a month.
“A lot of different companies are trying to ride the wave,” says Ms. Bellezza. “People are talking about drop culture now.”
Companies that have tried product drops in the past now find that the public is much more receptive to them.
The Scotch Malt Whiskey Society sells limited editions of unique Scotch whiskey every month. The rare bottles are not sold in stores. They are only available to members – there are 36,000 worldwide – who purchase them online or over the phone on a first-come, first-served basis.
Ben Diedrich, the senior director of the company, used to spend a lot of time explaining the sales model to new members. “They wouldn’t understand why they can’t sign up and buy things whenever they want,” he said.
Now those conversations almost never happen again. “People get it now,” he said. “They understand that consumerism has changed.”
