October 13th, 2010, 1 Comment »
As I mentioned last week, I’m really interested in the recent emergence in the post-consumer mastodon that is Groupon.
A friend of mine happens to be a single-day-deal power user. She agreed to a little interview. Her name isn’t actually Nancy, but I wanted to protect her identity until there’s a 12-step program she can enter. Demographically speaking, she’s a married, Caucasian, heterosexual Gen-Xer with children. If you have questions for Nancy, leave a comment and maybe she’ll answer.
Next week I’m going to try to talk to a couple of local businesses about their Groupon experience.
DB: When did you start using these services?
Nancy: In the summer.
DB: You belong to Groupon. How many of the other single-day-sale services do you belong to?
Nancy: Nine.
DB: So you get ten of those emails a day?
Nancy: I actually go on OneSpout. They’re all aggregated there. OneSpout tells you how much time is left on each deal, as well as mapping the deals out to show you where the deals are.
DB: How many of these would you say you’ve purchased since you started this summer?
Nancy: I’d go with about forty.
DB: Are there any trends in the sort of things that you buy?
Nancy: I’ve bought no actual products–it’s all services. I mostly buy from Groupon.
DB: Why is that?
Nancy: I think they’re more established. They have more clout to push for better deals. There’s also the convenience of using the same service, where you don’t have to enter new information or your credit card details each time. It sounds lame, but the one button to buy matters. Also, the discounts are the deepest on Groupon.
I’ve also never been disappointed by Groupon–I feel like the quality of service is really high. It never feels cheap or half-ass. The staff don’t feel reluctant–they’re prepped and happy. The Groupon app makes a big difference, because you don’t necessarily have to pre-plan and print out the documentation.
DB: Of the items you’ve purchased, would you have bought them anyway?
Nancy: I’m more drawn to things that I would be buying anyway for the most part. I got tickets to the Vancouver Museum. I also want to encourage driving attention to things like that.
DB: I gather your husband has laid down the law, in terms of number of purchases.
Nancy: (Laughs.) There’s been a bit of a discussion about ceasing and desisting the volume of the purchasing. But then he’s actually worse than I am in some ways, but he wants me to take the fall for it. There was one at Chronic Taco the other day, which I didn’t manage to get. And he was like, “what?”, and I’m like, “you said I should stop” and he’s all “not the good ones”. So we’re kind of an addictive family.
DB: So, on Groupon alone, you’ve got about 25 outstanding deals which you’ve bought but haven’t used yet. Honestly, do you think you’ll end up using them all?
Nancy: I will. I’m pretty cheap that way. The funny thing is that I’m not a purchaser–that’s so not me. But I do like experiences
DB: Do you think your discounted purchases will influence your future purchases? That is, have some of the Groupon sellers become places you shop regularly?
Nancy: I’d definitely recommend a rafting trip we did to others. But otherwise, I think I’m the wrong type of consumer for that type of thing. I’m a pretty habitual shopper. I think it could work for other people, who are more changeable, and bigger consumers in general.
In some ways, I have the opposite reaction to what some businesses might want, which is “this seems reasonable on this discount, but your full price is ridiculously high. But now that I’ve had it at his price, I’m not going to come back and pay the full price.”
DB: Do you tend to communicate with your friends a lot about deals?
Nancy: Yes. There’s people who know about my ‘habit’! I’ve got a healthy dose of shame about it, so my Facebook status is never going to be “check out the rockin’ deal!” But I do place surreptitious calls to my brother at work.
DB: Do you think you’ll maintain your rate of buying these deals?
Nancy: I have slowed down a bit. I don’t know if it’s my husband’s urging. My new personal policy is becoming “one out, one in”. So I have to use a Groupon before I buy another one. I was joking the other day that maybe those Millennium apartments down in False Creek will go on Groupon. I could tell my husband, “it’s my last one of the year, and I got us a one bedroom plus den for 80% off!”
UPDATE: Carlos pointed me in the direction of this cool infographic that depicts all of the “social buying” sites as planets orbiting a sun. It was built as a marketing gimmick for Flowtown, a poorly-named but useful data-mining service. I doubt exactly see a strong correlation between Flowtown and social buying, but your mileage may vary.
1 Comment »
September 5th, 2010, 10 Comments »
I’m in the market for a new office chair. I’m planning on investing in a good one. After all, you only get one back, and I want to take care of mine. Next to my bed, the office chair is where I spend most of my time.
I’ve done research and read a bunch of online reviews. However, like most significant purchases, I want to test drive some chairs to find the one that best fits my largish frame.
Here-in lies the problem.
Office chairs are commodities. You’ll always be able to buy the exact chair from an online store for a cheaper price than from a retail store. On a purchase like this, the difference could easily be a couple hundred bucks. This is simply down to the economics of virtual stores compared to bricks-and-mortar ones.
The standard wisdom here is to go to a real store, sit in a bunch of chairs and then go home and buy one online for less money.
Zero Intent to Buy
That behaviour–feigning interest at a bricks and mortar store while having zero intent to buy–feels unethical to me. What right do I have to take up the store staff’s time when they have no chance of making a sale?
I’ve discussed this with a few people, and the best counter-argument I’ve heard is that if I never go into, say, the Herman Miller store downtown, then the staff there have absolutely no chance of selling me a chair. To quote my friend’s shopping koan, “you can’t go back to the store if you never go in the first time”. The store also can’t benefit from any positive word-of-mouth I might spread if I have a good experience there.
I should say that there’s a difference between my proposed test-drive, and the passive act of browsing. In that case, you may just be killing time, or otherwise just curious about what a store offers. Me, I’m walking through the door with plans to buy somewhere else.
I’m no saint, obviously, so this is more a theoretical question than a practical one. What do you think?
10 Comments »
January 15th, 2009, 4 Comments »
When we were in New York, we set one afternoon aside for shopping. We meandered through Nolita and Soho, checking out the boutiques. I was dismayed to discover that there was nary a men’s shop in sight. I later checked with my fashion designer aunt, and she told me most of the men’s boutiques were in Chelsea (home, of course, to a large population of gay men).
So I came back from New York with nothing but new socks. I still needed clothes, so I asked local fashion blogger Victoria for some recommendations. She wrote a great post describing nine stores, most of which I’ve never visited. It’ll be very handy the next time I need some cool clothes.
I’d add a couple of stores to Victoria’s list: You and Whose Army (I couldn’t find a site for it–is it still around?) and Moule (not only a men’s store, but they had some nice clothes at very healthy discounts when I visited last weekend).
4 Comments »
February 4th, 2008, 2 Comments »
In Moroccan medinas, there’s a store every ten feet. They’re packed in like stalls at Playland. Or the average North American mall, if each store had one-fifth of the usual frontage.
Malta taught me a valuable lesson in shopping outside of North America and mainland Europe: what you need probably isn’t in plain view. Morocco has reinforced this idea. Most of these shops aren’t ‘shops’ in the way we think of them in North America. They’re stalls, with all of the inventory behind the counter.
That shift took me a while to make. You just hazard a guess at the right shop–few have signs–and ask the proprietor. This week in Essaouira I guessed correctly while seeking un marteau et des clous (“a hammer and some nails”–be careful to use ‘clous’ and not ‘ongles’, for the latter refers to fingernails).
Last week I incorrectly visited an electronics store to ask about une rallonge (a power bar). They directed me across the street to what I can only describe as “the wire and cable shop”. He hooked me up.
The Shop Comes to You
In our small village on Gozo, the shop came to you. Each morning you’d hear a tooting horn grow louder as the vegetable man drove into town. He’d park his truck in the town square, and sell vegetables to the local women. And me. There was likewise a fish man who had a different horn, and also yelled a lot in Maltese. On Tuesdays, the gas man would come through to replace propane tanks. In bigger towns, you’d also see other trucks–hardware, dried goods and so forth. Like whale dialects, we’ve come to recognize the distinct honks of each mobile seller.
There’s a similar kind of culture of announcement here in Morocco. The gas man says something in Arabic (I’m guessing “gas”) as he pushes his laden handcart through the narrow alleys of our medina. Likewise, the garbage men call out as they come by to collect the refuse twice daily.
No Queues
Julie just spent ten days back in Vancouver, and we were discussing the radically different retail models. She pointed out that whenever you bought anything in downtown Vancouver–clothing, coffee, groceries–you stood in a line.
The opposite is true here. In fact, ‘shopping’ is a bit of a misnomer. You’re pretty much always shopping–as in browsing–when you walk down any street. The wares–particularly for the tourists–burst forth from every stall. More accurately, I never stand in line when I’m buying.
Why are there no queues? You almost always buy with cash, and, despite the medina’s dense population, there seem to be too many shops per buyer. There’s also far less customization–nobody orders “a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon”. They have coffee. Full stop.
If I were busier, I’d probably crave the order and sterility of a Canadian mall or grocery store. This year abroad has really reinforced my ascetic tendencies. I’ll never look at shopping, buying and consuming the same way.
2 Comments »
January 14th, 2008, 3 Comments »
I just got back from Essaouira’s souk, where the locals shop. I bought:
- 6 eggs.
- A whole chicken breast (meaning, uh, all the white meat on the bird). The butcher pulled it from his refrigeration unit–a box of water.
- A mango, 6 plums and 4 apples.
- Some carrots, an onion and a green pepper.
- Some couscous.
- A couple baguettes.
All for 75 dirhams, or just under CAN $10. A little cheaper than Urban Fare, methinks.
3 Comments »
October 14th, 2007, No Comments »
I got into Toronto last night and had an extremely satisfying evening. I ordered fish and chips from room service, and watched Hockey Night in Canada to stave off the jet lag. Happily, the Leaves [sic] lost and the Canucks won (Trevor Linden, I love ya buddy, but maybe it’s time to hang them up?).
Today I did some work, wandered around downtown doing some random minor shopping in the Enormous! Shiny! Malls!, and then went and saw the aforementioned Once.
And I’m a little chilly! Excepting recent dips in our increasing icy pool, I honestly haven’t been cold since late May. Not even a little chilly. It’s 13°C in the Centre of the Universe, and so I’m reveling in the very slight discomfort of being cold for a change.
No Comments »
October 4th, 2007, 8 Comments »
My Irish friend Sarah recently wrote a post about a trip to the USA, and the stark difference between customer service in Ireland and stateside:
In Ireland, no matter what shop you go into, the main purpose of the assistants is to make clear that you needn’t think you are any better than them just because they are on the other side of the counter. Refusal to make eye contact, flinging change on the counter (or managing to put it in your hand without looking at you which takes considerable effort) grumpily announcing that all sizes are on display and consciously avoiding one’s attempt to attract attention.
The Irish folks in the comment thread unilaterally agree. All of my Irish friends would regularly complain about the service in Ireland. They sometimes found the service in North America a little ingenuine, but they preferred too much help to not enough.
There’s tangible evidence of this attitude implicit in the way Irish clerks greet you in many shops. They say “are you okay, there?” I never really knew what the correct answer to that question was. If I needed assistance, I think I was supposed to say “no”, as in “I’m not okay, I need your help finding hot pants”, or whatever.
The subtext of “are you okay, there?” is, of course, “do I actually have to deign to do my job and help you?”
I asked several Irish people why there’s such a lousy attitude in the service industry. Nobody gave me a satisfactory answer.
8 Comments »
May 17th, 2007, 8 Comments »
Last week we were shopping in the market square in Rabat, and happened upon a fish seller (not, as far as I could tell, that kind of fishmonger). We weren’t in the market for fish that day, but we asked when he was there. “Tuesday to Friday”, he replied.
I returned last Tuesday, and he was nowhere to be seen. I tried again today, and there was no sign of him again. What gives?
I asked one of the vegetable sellers nearby. She told me that “he doesn’t come if it’s windy”.
“Ah,” I said, knowingly, “thanks.” I’m still not sure why the wind determines his operating hours, but I must assume that the fishing is lousy when the wind is blowing.
There are thousands of peices of cultural data like this that you get to wrestle with and learn when you live in a new place. I find it to be one of the great joys of living abroad. Just think how triumphant I’ll feel when I actually get my hands on some fish.
Mind you, then I’ll have to fillet it. I’ve been collecting a few bookmarks on that subject.
8 Comments »