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In North Myrtle Beach, there are discount beach stuff stores every other block. The main two are Eagles and Bargain. The main tourist item to buy is a shark tooth necklace, which is essentially a string with a shark tooth attached to it. It looks decent enough, and it impresses young children. Yes, we bought a couple of necklaces for the kids. But they are cheap, as in less than a dollar.

I saw an advertisement for airplane advertising – you pay this company some money and they will fly a banner with your message up and down the beach. It’s a common form of advertising anywhere there are a bunch of people, and the seaside is no exception. One of the beach-stuff places employed this method of aerial advertising. They paid someone at least $300 per hour, plus the fee to create the banner, a one-time fee of at least $100. So assuming they had the plane for one hour, that would be $400.

They were advertising for the shark-tooth necklace – a 70-cent item. Assuming a profit margin of 50%, the would make $0.35 per necklace. They would have to sell 1,143 necklaces, to new customers who would not have otherwise gone to the store, in order to break even. And the beach wasn’t even that crowded. What I expect is that the necklaces are their loss leaders and the stores lure you in for those but pitch other higher-priced items to make up for them. So if you go buy a shark-tooth necklace, beware the other items in the store.

“The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, `Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.'”
– Matthew 25:20