The Bait Plate
"You came for one cheap thing and left with a full basket."
Price one product at or below margin to drive traffic; the rest of the basket pays for it. Works because attention and footfall are the scarce resources.
Same hack. Three very different choices.
The loss-leader is a real, complete product, not a degraded teaser.
Loss-leader is technically the advertised item but limited stock or fine-print exclusions are heavy.
Bait-and-switch: advertised item is 'sold out' on arrival to upsell into the full-margin alternative.
A formula you can steal
Pick [CATEGORY-DEFINING ITEM] → price aggressively → engineer the natural [ATTACH SALE].
Where you've already seen this
- Costco's $1.50 hot dog — same price since 1985, intentionally.
- IKEA's $0.50 cinnamon roll at the exit, after a $400 living-room trip.
- Black Friday TV doorbusters with three units per store.
When you have a real attach product or loyalty engine that recoups the loss-leader's discount through downstream basket size.
When you don't have an honest attach. A cheap entry product with no downstream value just trains low-margin traffic.
Try the trick today
Identify your most-trafficked product. Calculate true margin including attach. Could you cut its price 30% if it doubled basket size?
Free Marketing Hacked module included. See more cautionary tales and learn the playbook from the inside.
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