When you’re shopping at a store in the real world, would you rather have a conversation with a sales associate or look up information on your own mobile phone? The results of a study by the Consumer Electronics Association will shock nobody who has ever received inaccurate or misleading information from a salesperson, or had to get away from an aggressive salesperson who wants nothing more than to close a sale. [More]
shopping
4 Holiday Gifts That Everyone Is Tired Of
By 12.1.14
Yes, it’s that time of year again, when people whine about how many people in our lives are important enough to us that we are obligated to give them gifts. Plenty of gift items seem like neutral gifts that just about anybody would like. They are not. Before you choose any of these default gifts, stop and think about what you’re doing, and whether the person will really like it. [More]
Warm Up For Black Friday: Here’s A Pop Quiz On The Best Deals
By 11.26.14
You can’t depend on retailers to tell you whether you’re really getting a good deal or not. Is $89 the cheapest that you can find an Apple TV for? Is a $199 Dyson vacuum cleaner too good to pass up? You can make sure that your deal-finding senses are finely tuned and ready for Black Friday with an interactive deal quiz over at CNN. Some deals are exceptional, and others compare unfavorably to other recent sales, sometimes at the same retailer. [CNN] [More]
7-Year-Old Girl Questions ‘Fun Gifts For Boys’ Sign At Tesco
By 11.24.14
Tesco is a supermarket/superstore based in the United Kingdom. They sell just about everything, including toys. However, one member of the toy-buying public was not thrilled with their holiday marketing. A 7-year-old girl noticed a “Fun gifts for boys” sign on a photo of an alarm clock featuring Marvel superheroes. Wait a minute: she likes superheroes. Why is that only a gift for boys? [More]
Can Retailers Make Us Stop Returning So Much Stuff?
By 11.24.14
After the holiday shopping frenzy is over, frenzy season isn’t yet complete: in malls and in post offices alike, shoppers then go into an item-returning and gift-card-spending frenzy. Unfortunately, this costs retailers a lot of money. Instead of accepting the cost of returns as a recurring annual thing, can they find a way to reduce them? [More]
Zappos Is Opening An Enormous Real-Life Holiday Pop-Up Store
By 11.21.14
Zappos is famous for its attentive customer service, but how would that translate to real life? Customers will have the opportunity to find out from this weekend until December 31, as Zappos opens a 20,000 square foot holiday pop-up store in downtown Las Vegas. Since it’s Vegas, the store will be open 24/7 the whole time (except for Thanksgiving and Christmas) and offer an integrated retail and online shopping experience, especially to customers who download the app before they shop. [More]
Poll Results: Most Americans Don’t Shop On Thanksgiving Or Black Friday
By 11.19.14
Whether stores plan to open to shoppers on Thanksgiving Day or not, there would be no American Shopping Frenzy Long Weekend at all if people weren’t going to head out there and shop. Yet who are the people who have clamored to go out and shop on Thanksgiving Day? How many Americans are really going to hit the stores at the end of next week? The results of two polls can give us some insight. [More]
Police Searching For Lane Bryant Shopper Accused Of Letting Her Dog Urinate On Store’s Clothes
By 11.19.14
There are bad consumers, and then there are shoppers who allow their dogs to do their bathroom business inside the store. And we’re not talking a little “oops” of a light sprinkle, but New Jersey police say one Lane Bryant shopper let her little pet pee on $2,000 worth of store merchandise. [More]
This ‘Premier Shopping Destination’ Is A Mall For Rich People
By 10.28.14
When people who are truly wealthy go shopping, they don’t always go to the regular malls that regular people use. No, people who drop six-figure sums at a single mall every year are entitled to a much fancier level of service, and there’s a Long Island mall that exists to provide it to them. Since the ’80s, Americana Manhasset has been a mall only for rich people. [More]
The Costco Effect: Science Says We Choose Less Variety When Buying In Bulk
By 10.16.14
When you go to a convenience store to grab a few cold drinks and some snacks, you’re probably going to make different shopping choices than you would at the supermarket or warehouse store. And a new study claims that we tend to go for more variety when we’re not buying in bulk — even if the bulk packages offer variety. [More]
Army Of Consumers Get Paid To Snap Smartphone Pics In Stores
By 10.1.14
Sure, companies might pay retailers for favorable placement or fancy displays for their products, but how do they know whether those ads are working or the displays are set up as requested? Every day, there’s a flood of customers walking past those displays carrying tiny computers with good quality cameras on them. What do those two things have to do with each other? [More]
Retail Experts: Sorry, But Stores Will Open Even Earlier This Thanksgiving
By 9.24.14
In 2013, we were scandalized that retailers rolled back their opening times, kicking off the Black Friday festivities as early as 6 A.M. on Thanksgiving Day. Not everyone found this idea horrifying, though, because retailers reported record Thanksgiving weekend sales last year. In their desperation to boost sales somehow by the end of 2014, experts in the industry say that America’s retailers are going to ignore that whole idea of a Thanksgiving holiday again this year. [More]
Snobby Store Employees Only Make Us Want To Spend More
By 9.3.14
Is being sneered at an important part of the luxury shopping experience? Maybe. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that high-end retailers take advantage of our human need to belong and seek approval in order to vacuum more money out of our non-designer purses. [More]
Going Shopping? Here’s Where You’ll Find September Deals
By 8.29.14
Do you plan to spend your Labor Day weekend shopping? If so, there are certain things that you’ll find great deals on as the calendar flips from August to September. Our power-shopping colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports recommend looking for gas grills, digital cameras, bicycles, and small electronics. Our friends over at Rather-Be-Shopping would add mattresses, baseball equipment, pool toys, and model year 2014 cars to that list. [Rather-Be-Shopping] [Consumer Reports] [More]
Woman Says Anthropologie Manager Sent Her To Breastfeed On The Toilet
By 8.21.14
A woman in California says that Anthropologie used to be her favorite store, but she gave serious thought to boycotting the chain after a store manager asked her to please feed her six-week-old son in the bathroom, not in the back of the store. The goal? To make everyone more “comfortable.” [More]
Target App Allows Customers To Take Pictures Of Ads, Have Product Delivered To Their Door
By 7.22.14
Have you ever seen a product in an ad that you just had to have but couldn’t make it to the actual store? Sure, you could try to find it online, but who has time to wade through search results all day? A new app from Target hopes to connect customers and their sought-after items more easily. [More]
Abandon Your Online Shopping Cart, Get Coaxed Back With Coupon Codes
By 7.21.14
When you’re shopping in a real-life store, fill up a cart, and then abandon it, that makes you kind of a terrible person. Store employees will secretly hate you. More importantly, no one will chase after you and hand over a coupon in order to encourage you to come back and finish your transaction. That’s where online shopping is very different. [More]
Sears Ships Tiny Wrench To Store In Giant Box
By 7.15.14
You would think that when ordering an item online for in-store pickup, a retailer would package the item in an efficient way, perhaps putting it in a box with other tools being shipped to the store. No. Not at Victor’s local Sears. [More]
