Shopportunity!
How to Be a Retail Revolutionary
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Respected business strategist Newlin takes a deep plunge inside the world of making and marketing American brands to call for nothing less than a total re-imagination of the process through which consumers acquire goods and services. From the lowdown on markdowns, to the real costs of “everyday low prices,” Newlin shows how consumers’ needs and wants are researched, identified, and responded to at the manufacturing and marketing level of companies, and then systematically ignored by those same manufacturers and their retailers when it comes time to bring brands to market.
She explains how one generation of marketers has addicted three generations of consumers to the heroin of price promotion and what it means to consumers’ waistlines, credit ratings, and life experience. From Wal-Mart to Shop-Rite to CVS and Home Shopping Network, Newlin reveals what the world’s leading brands really know about consumers and how they ultimately sell the products they buy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The title suggests an acerbic anticonsumerist rant, but marketing consultant Newlin is entirely serious: she wants readers to rediscover "shopping's enduring allure." Decrying the "Big Box obsession with massive quantities of cheap goods," she urges consumers to shop for the right things for the right reasons at the right places to buy from family-owned merchants that offer pleasant environments for both shoppers and workers. Few readers will be surprised when Newlin visits a dreaded Wal-Mart and finds it "a loud, boisterous, difficult place to shop" with an "essential sadness." But the reason she wants retailers to stop offering discounts and consumers to stop buying products in bulk isn't to create a more just society; it's so we'll be happier with what we buy. Newlin argues that we get little satisfaction out of buying cheap, because "we suspect it's not quite as good" though anyone who loves outlet shopping will be more than a little skeptical. It doesn't help that much of the book is a confusing assemblage of anecdotes and musings. But there are some useful insights for consumers, retailers and manufacturers, and some readers will certainly strive to see shopping as an experience that "should thrill the senses."
