How is that "Post-modern"? It does seem pretty dumb; I agree.
I've always thought that Circuit City has had sales people to spare, though. I rarely go to Circuit City, but when I do it seems to me there are always more sales people than customers.
Why can't they just pay their employees more and reduce their costs? That would be post-modern, I think. And the employees could have church there. And drink coffee, too.
I think it's post modern because I made the assumption that having salesman in the marketing chain had always been a part of retailing and that this is "modern". (I could very well be wrong here.) The salesman conveyed information in a way that got the customer to buy. Given the present state of consumer technology (where, for example, I am every day baffled by my Treo), I would think that a good salesman would be worth the extra cost. But people apparently get their information someowhere else (say, the internet), and so are mainly driven by price when they get ready to buy, and they want it NOW. So they can go to Wal-Mart and get their plasma TV and can avoid the higher prices at Circuit City that the Circuit City people think are higher because of higher paid sales people. Maybe that's not post modern, but I did get you to comment. :)
That's a good point. I wouldn't look to the sales person as my first line of information. I would think his primary interest would be selling something to me - that his interest in giving me accurate information wouldn't be a top priority. Such an assumption of a subtext combined with access to other "unbiased" channels of information seems post-modern.
3 comments:
How is that "Post-modern"? It does seem pretty dumb; I agree.
I've always thought that Circuit City has had sales people to spare, though. I rarely go to Circuit City, but when I do it seems to me there are always more sales people than customers.
Why can't they just pay their employees more and reduce their costs? That would be post-modern, I think. And the employees could have church there. And drink coffee, too.
I think it's post modern because I made the assumption that having salesman in the marketing chain had always been a part of retailing and that this is "modern". (I could very well be wrong here.) The salesman conveyed information in a way that got the customer to buy. Given the present state of consumer technology (where, for example, I am every day baffled by my Treo), I would think that a good salesman would be worth the extra cost. But people apparently get their information someowhere else (say, the internet), and so are mainly driven by price when they get ready to buy, and they want it NOW. So they can go to Wal-Mart and get their plasma TV and can avoid the higher prices at Circuit City that the Circuit City people think are higher because of higher paid sales people. Maybe that's not post modern, but I did get you to comment. :)
That's a good point. I wouldn't look to the sales person as my first line of information. I would think his primary interest would be selling something to me - that his interest in giving me accurate information wouldn't be a top priority. Such an assumption of a subtext combined with access to other "unbiased" channels of information seems post-modern.
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