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Only till this weekend! Upto 70% off!*
The Honest Hindustani
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Remember the last time you attended a dinner invitation at your friend’s? You had taken quite an expensive bottle of Chardonnay. You thought you had made a good entree. Wrong. You lost money right there, not to mention an unforced, yet unconscious loss in your value. Your friend’s perception of the value of your gift is roughly about 20 to 30 percent less than what it actually cost you. Surprised? Try it out yourself. Pick up a gift you received recently, guess its price, and then check with a local retailer.

Market research institutes have blamed retailers in this unforced loss of product worth, ultimately leading to a loss in the currency itself. Why retailers? The answer is not far away. Open your newspaper, page 3. What do you see? Macy’s, Bloomingdale, J C Penny’s, and Sears scream out at you. “Only till this weekend—upto 70% off!” Which has led you to unconsciously discount the actual worth of the product you buy, even though it is new! Add to this another hefty discount in your friend’s perception, and you have it—what you purchased is now worth almost nothing.

Where did this mega-discount strategy go wrong? Remember those days when you felt a glow of pride in reading that small print, which declared in no uncertain metal-etched terms, “Made in the U.S.A.” Find ten products in the market today that still has that print. As industrial America shifted its manufacturing to labor intensive markets, brands which had built their history in American-made products were hard put to survive, against new hip names like Gap, which was proud of its foriegn manufacturing. But a Macy’s could not source merchandise cheaply, and still sell them at the normally high rates that it sold American products. Discount reared its Medusa head.

This is normal business. So you are buying at such huge discounts, that you are patting yourself on your back about your smart purchasing skills. Of course, you realize that the store bought its merchandise at a fraction of the price tag you are looking at? You will say that the mark-up pays for retail and landed costs. Silly, did you see that long queue you are in, waiting to be served? And did you remember finding any one of their “friendly” staff on the shop floor to help you with that shirt size? They are not there anymore. They cost salaries, darling, which the store does not want to pay. The store does not have much overhead costs to pass on to you, when there is only one check-out till open—in rush hour.

Unlimited weekend and night minutes, and 600 anytime minutes a month for only $39.
And then when your service drops a couple of calls, and you call their customer service in furious frustration, they have a great way of calming you down. There is nobody at the other end of the line. You wonder why? You are not paying the cost of that seat, pal. If you think they are at least honest about their long distance service and rates, check you bills again.They got you again, didn’t they?

Look at the Lasik surgery market. Treatment for one eye is at $499, only for a limited time (which never seems to have a limit), after which the regular price reverts to $899! Would you trust your precious eyes to this kind of hardsell? Not me. I will live with my thick lenses or shift to some temporary contact lenses. Dogs for the blind are expensive, you see.

So do we distrust these people? I have no answer. But do you get a satisfaction out of buying at these “low” prices and your perceived “savings”? The research institutes who are wringing their hands at the imperceptible, yet definite loss in product value, are also worried about the rising anxiety in shoppers about “right” purchases. They define this as the “comfortable reassurance” felt by a shopper after he or she has taken that shopping bag home. Open that box of expensive Rolex that you just bought for only $2999. Look at it. Now place your hand on your heart and swear to me that you are absolutely confident that $2999 is the best price you would pay. Can you? Ha!

* And we haven’t talked about fine print yet, my friend. More on that in the next issue.


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