The aspirational upper-middle-class customer who helped companies like Coach and Saks post double-digit growth in the past few years has disappeared due to the current rotten economy, writes BusinessWeek. The result: luxury goods companies that expanded their product lines to appeal to the not-quite-rich now have $150 purses and nobody to buy them. Coach went so far as to offer coupons recently “to drum up sales.”
shoppers
Attention Shoppers: Please Report For Jury Duty
By 1.13.08
A Vermont judge sent his sheriff to the mall to round up a jury that could fairly try a child molester.
They stopped passers-by and asked if they were residents of Caledonia County; a “yes” answer won a summons to appear at the courthouse for jury duty immediately, right now, this minute. They rounded up 45 people that way in all, to join the 34 already at the courthouse.
Man Who Discovered Tainted Toothpaste Located, Interviewed
By 10.2.07
Sometimes being a conscientious shopper really does matter. The man who realized that tubes of discount toothpaste were tainted with diethylene glycol last May has been found and interviewed by the New York Times. Eduardo Arias, a 51-year-old government worker in Panama City, was shopping in a discount store one Saturday when he saw the toothpaste—he said he could read the ingredients list clearly without even picking up a tube, and when he saw “diethylene glycol” as an ingredient, alarms went off.
MA Supermarkets Ban Hyper-Savvy Shopper
By 8.21.06
One time we bought some kitty litter at a NJ Shop Rite and noticed the price at checkout was higher than on the in-store label. Standard store policy says this means we get it for free. We brought bag up to customer service. They sent a stock boy to check the aisle. He returned and said we were wrong. We went back to the shelves ourselves, grabbed the label, and presented it to the desk. Customer service people sheepishly gave us the litter on the house.
Guess There’s No ‘Five-Second Rule’ In Shopping
By 5.4.06
Shoppers are less likely to buy clothing if they think it has been touched by others, accordinig to a recent study at the University of Alberta.
