How Not to do Sales

One of my favorite clothing stores is Eddie Bauer Their products are extremely durable and comfortable they re however quite expensive. So when I first started shopping there if I wanted to buy something I would wait, and only buy if I could get if for 30% off or more. However, I started to notice that every time I go into their store or get a catalog from them it seems everything in the store is always 30-40% off. Over the past four months I've been in the store once and received two catalogues from them, and wouldn't you know 30-40% off every time.

In case you were wondering this is
terrible sales practise. The purpose of a sale is to get people excited about getting your products for a cheaper price and bring in more business. By having a store wide sale for months at a time you are just sending the message to your customers that the real price of you products are when they are marked 30% off.

This creates a problem now for them because if their other customers like me find their products to expensive I now only make purchases from them if I can find items marked down by at least 40%, even then I feel as though after realizing these facts I am less likely to buy from them.

If they want to fix this it is my opinion that they need to lower the regular price on the products, and when they do have sales only sell certain items at discounted prices, rather than everything in the store.

The Big Nudge

Its that time of year again where every store one visits seems to be having it's biggest sale ever, and everyone is constantly scouring the Internet and searching store to store for the best deals. Sense 1952 Black Friday has marked the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Everyone knows that black Friday can get crazy, sense 2006 there have been seven reorted deaths and 98 injuries, but in my oppinion it is probably one of the greatest nudges that has ever been implemented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping)

All of these store are advertising about how much money consumers are going to save if they buy products on black Friday, and the consumers eat it up. But if you are spending money even if you get something 50% off you are still spending, which is the opposite of saving. The mannor in which all of these stores and online site frame their advertising is fooling consumers into spending money where they souldn't and because they get such good deals they buy fancier items than they normally would and end up spending more than normal anyway.

Will Amazon Take Over

What started as a site to get books online for cheap prices, and a company that took over a decade to turn a profit has now turned into the largest online retailer in the world. Although their sales aren't as high amazon is already valued at 120 billion dollars more than Wal-mart is, and Wal-mart is 32 years older. Anyone remember the book retailer Boarders? because it was amazon who drove them out of business, and now many are questioning if malls are going to be next.

Amazon now sells just about anything you can think of, and if you are a Prime member you can get most items in just two days. For many people, including myself, it is much easier to order something on amazon and have it brought right to my door than it is to drive to any given store and hope they have what I need.

You'll also notice that if you are a Prime member you now get Prime Music and Video. Prime video is a similar service to Netflix and Hulu. and Prime Music give access to many songs for free and the rest can be purchased just like on iTunes. They also released  new product last year called the Amazon Echo that is essentially a better version of Seri that you place in your home and can speak to.

There are still many people who like to go out and see items in person or try them on before they buy, but even a few years ago i could never have imagined buying certain items online, such as TVs or musical instruments, and now these items are common place buys on the Internet. So who can say what we will be buying on amazon in the future. What is your opinion will amazon eventually become dominant in all industries as it has the book store?

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/07/22/jeff-bezos-amazon-ceo-world-domination-479508.html

Is Language really Worse than Violence

Spoiler Alert: If you are a fan of The Walking Dead and you haven't seen the first episode of season 7 you should turn back now.

For those of you who have ever watched the TV series the Walking Dead you'll notice that the characters in the show, although in the most terrifying and dangerous situations, very rarely use obscene language. This is due to the fact that AMC doesn't play R rated movies or TV series without editing them. However, if you have seen this series you'll undoubtedly have noticed it is extremely gruesome and violent, and in my opinion even more so than the popular HBO series Game of Thrones. But in the latest season of The Walking Dead the writers really out did themselves, by showing not one, but two of the main characters getting their heads smashed by a man with a baseball bat. On one hand I give props to the makeup and special effects crews for making the scene looks so realistic, but on the other hand this was not something I wanted to see, or for that matter could even believe they allowed on TV. Keep in mind the series is rated TV-14.

This led me to question why people are so quick to protect kids from the "bad" language that they no doubt use and hear with their peers on a daily basis, and yet no one has a problem with the extremely graphic violence in these TV shows. In my opinion the extreme violence in these shows is as bad or worse than bad language, and eventually the rating system will have to be updated or the shows will have to showcase less graphic scenes. Anyway, if you scroll down you can see the image of this graphic death below.....



                                                                                                                                                             

Just kidding! This is a Lego parody someone made, if you really want to witness this scene you can go on YouTube and search "Glenn and Abraham's death." If you do, let me know what your thoughts on the matter were. Do you think that kind of violence on TV is okay?





http://www.cosmicbooknews.com/sites/default/files/lego-walking-dead-glenn-abraham-death.jpg

What Happened to Hobbies?

A few years ago, after I had moved out of the dorms and into my first apartment, one of my roommates, an art student, would always bring home his latest creations, whether it be a knife he had forged or a mug or a painting, I would always think "wow look at this awesome stuff he is creating, why don't I ever make anything cool like that?" However, I would tell myself he does these things in his classes and I don't have time for that. One day I actually looked at how I spent my time though, I noticed I was spending a large amount of my time ether on social media or watching Netflix. So I decided I was going to pick up a hobby and try to create something with my time rather than just watch TV and scroll through social media with all my free time. Two years later I find myself able to create just about anything out of wood, I've built end tables, rocking chairs, carved chess sets, and many other tings. I can also now play the guitar moderately well and am now attempting to learn to play the piano.

So you may be asking what point am I trying to make here? I've spoken to many friends and classmates who tell me they are too busy to have a hobby of any sort, yet when I ask those same people if they know of any good Netflix series they will immediately tell me about three different series and about the time they binge watched a whole series in one weekend. In 2015 the average time spent on a Netflix account per day was one hour and 33 minutes. At the same time the average American spends 4.7 hours a day on their phones.  Now I'm not saying you should swear off Netflix, or stop using your phones, because watching an episode or movie on Netflix from time to time can be very relaxing and fun! And Smart phones can be great tools. However, spending hours on social media and watching Netflix all day are not healthy physically or mentally.

Having a hobby on the other hand, whatever it may be, can be very beneficial. A hobby can help you develop your creativity which could transfer directly to your work. It can also increase your confidence having skills outside of work might prepare you to be ready for a change in your career. Hobbies can also help you grow as a person and truly discover who you are and what you want to do. 

So next time you are planning a day of Netflix think what else you could be doing or maybe even what you've wanted to do for a while but haven't had time.

http://time.com/4186137/netflix-hours-per-day/

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/informate-report-social-media-smartphone-use/

https://www.govloop.com/community/blog/5-reasons-everyone-hobby/

Nudge Toward Conversing

In last weeks class spent trying to find Nudges in Jabs hall My partners and I noticed that the main lobby area in Jabs was designed so that you have to sit with others. All the tables are made for more than one person  and in close proximity to each other. We thought they purposely set up the lobby like this because they wanted people to engage with each other and communicate. Although this is a good nudge we found problems with the space that could be improved. We all noticed that when working in this space between class periods it gets extremely loud and you essentially can't accomplish anything. Also if it is mostly empty we noticed that you can hear people working in the lobby throughout the entire building.

While reading Creative Confidence one of the examples of creativity they provided was called a digital yurt, which is basically a circular enclosure with a table in the middle that is covered in paper. The purpose of these are to inspire, or nudge, people to collaborate with eachother and be creative in a public space that feels private.


I think these yurt stations would be perfect for the first floor lobby in Jabs hall. They would be even more of a nudge toward working with others, which is already being nudged in Jabs, and on top of that they would solve some of the noise problems faced when trying to work in the lobby.

Nudge Toward saving

In the book Nudge the authors state that the average American credit card debt as of 2008 was $5,000. A study done in 2015 https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt-household/  the average American House hold credit card debt was $15,675. The average debt nearly tripled in the last seven years. The authors of Nudge also say that Americans are saving less and spending more than ever before.

http://static.parade.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/credit-cards-ftr.jpg

After reading this section on money in Nudge, and reading Sonja Jacobson’s blog about how much makeup women buy (http://sjacobsoncbexperience.blogspot.com) an idea came to me that could possibly help people that are over spending on non-essential products, and save more money.

Imagine a credit card where every time you buy a non-essential item, whatever the cost, that same amount of money is also set aside into a savings account. A card like this would not only force people to think a lot more about their purchases but also create more savings for consumers.

Now I realize many consumers would be terrified of a card like this and would not want to use it, but for the people out there that are genuinely trying to save more and spend less it could be a great tool. I myself spend way too much money on backpacking equipment and am planning on implementing this strategy in order to help myself not spend as much money. Whether or not I actually follow through is yet to be seen but I know I would be much more likely to do it if I actually had a card like this.

Finding a credit card company that would make a card like this is another trick, considering that if people are thinking more about how much they spend they will likely spend less, and credit card companies make their money off of people who spend too much money so they might not be very excited about this idea. However if you are a person whose trying to save more, or spend less, or both this might be an idea you can try.