Sales of baseball bats rose over 5,000 percent in the U.K. since Monday. According to PCWorld, analysts believe the surge in purchases has more to do with ongoing riots in London than they do with an increase in the international popularity of Jose Canseco. The spike was first discovered on Amazon U.K.'s Movers and Shakers list by Hacker News, who have yet to determine whether the purchases are predominantly made by criminals or vigilante shop owners.
Here is a look at three other major occurrences that led to a surge in sales for seemingly unrelated products.
Obama Election: Give Me Back My Bullets
In the weeks after Barack Obama won the presidency, the FBI noted a 49 percent increase in background check activity related to gun purchases. According to CNN, Bernie Conatser of Manassas, Va., said that in his 12 years as an arms dealer, "I was here for Y2K, September 11 and Katrina-and we did notice a spike in business, but nothing on the order of what we are seeing right now."
Buyers and sellers both attributed the surge in firearms purchases to the fear that Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress would make a move to restrict gun ownership. Shortly after the surge in firearms purchases, gun shops started reporting a run on ammunition driven by fears that Obama would levy taxes on bullets. Rumors started flying that the president had banned ammunition, but statements from Winchester Ammunition confirmed that the shortage was due to an insatiable nationwide demand.
Christchurch Earthquake Spurs TV Sales
The 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Christchurch, New Zealand, on Feb. 22, 2011, caused widespread damage. Estimates by Business Day put the cost of rebuilding at approximately $15 billion, making the Christchurch earthquake the third costliest quake worldwide. The extensive damage didn't cause residents to put off purchasing the most important item a household can have: a television.
Jason Bell of the Noel Leeming Group said that TV sales saw an 80 percent surge at Christchurch stores, and a 10 percent increase nationally. Store owners were having a hard time keeping up with demand, attributing the choice of replacing a television before other items to the need to stay up to speed on what was going on.
I wonder if "American Idol" played a small role in the spike?
President Bush's Naughty Stimulus
To help the economy recover in 2008, President Bush pushed for and easily passed a stimulus package that gave most single taxpayers a $600 bonus refund on their taxes. The checks were supposed to stimulate spending, but they may have stimulated something else.
Kirk Mishkin, head research consultant for Adult Internet Market Research Co., seems to believe that most Americans bought Internet porn with their stimulus checks. According to the Huffington Post, Mishkin said, "Many of the sites we surveyed have reported 20-30% growth in membership rates since mid-May when the checks were first sent out, and typically the summer is a slow period for this market." Those Americans who had put off buying a subscription to Internet porn were likely further persuaded by the fact that everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't we?
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