Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

In the intro Shell says that she hopes the book will "serve both as cautionary tale and road map" for us tourists in Discount Nation. She certainly maps out the territory, but she does so much more. Shell relates the history of retail in fascinating detail (including the inventions of the price tag and the shopping cart), the psychology of pricing, the lure of outlets and the shell game of mark-downs. She chronicles, with meticulous reportage and keen insight, the devastating effect of buying cheap: the death of craftsmanship and the toll that our relentless search for a bargain has taken on the world's economy, its people, and the environment. Read the book for the details that will inform you and change your thinking about the real value of the cheap desk at IKEA or the all-you-can-eat shrimp fest at Red Lobster. But, read it also for the engaging and engaged voice that lets us know we are in the hands of a sharp thinker and master writer. Shell takes on the big guns of Discount Nation and does it with such a sure hand and that it takes a while to realize how thoroughly they've been eviscerated. Read the book also for Shell's conclusions--that all is not lost. If you are convinced by her closely reasoned argument that "cheap" has wrecked havoc on our world and our souls (how could you not be?), then she provides the beginning of a road map to change. Companies exist, like Wegman's and Costco, who do it right. Shell writes, "We have the power to enact change and to chart a pragmatic course."

In "Cheap" Ellen Ruppel Shell asks a fundamental question: when is a bargain really a bargain? Sure, price is one indicator but there are many factors which play into that low price that don't reflect the genuine broader costs to a society. Beyond that, do we really need all the things we buy or are there larger psychological and sociological impulses that drive such consumerism? Thinking of the old adage that a smart customer is an informed customer then Shell feels that Americans penchant for consumerism has blinded us to larger realities. In a nation where storage units sprout like weeds and people rarely park their cars in their garages because of all the stuff crammed in them, isn't it time we reassess what we really need? That's the point Shell is getting at, but it's broader than that. Examining the nations that make much of what we buy there's unfair labor practices, non-existent environmental laws, inequitable trade policies and other practices that give them a distinct and unfair advantage compared to goods produced by developed nations. We're thrilled to get more for less but are oblivious to the human and environmental tolls in those developing nations and to the loss of jobs in those nations that play buy the rules. Compounding the environmental cost is moving goods to market via semitrailers and other modes of transportation. While that's factored into the low cost, locally produced goods would reduce the carbon footprint even while saving domestic jobs. These are all arguments heard before condemning consumerism and there certainly are counterarguments that are equally valid. As with all things there has to be a balance and that is the crux of "Cheap": we've ceased to rationalize our purchases. Shell advocates taking a time-out before buying to determine if we genuinely need the item or are attracted by a tantalizing bargain price. It's easy to think of purchases made that turned out to be poorly made which break and cannot be easily repaired. The low price means we can throw it out guilt-free and buy a new one, but why not buy quality items that won't break in the first place? What saves "Cheap" is the crisp concise and insightful writing. Much of what is contained here has been said before, but not perhaps as well or as persuasively argued. "Cheap" follows on the heels of other books on the true cost of our consumerism such as Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash and $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better that argue for a reassessment of the way we shop. Given consumers rethinking their purchasing habits in this economic recession "Cheap" is well timed, as its essential reading for anyone wanting to become a more informed consumer.

CHEAP opens: "This book is about America's dangerous liaison with Cheap. In a market awash with increasingly similar-even identical-goods, price is the ultimate arbiter, the lower the better." Shell admits that she has always been a sucker for discount come-ons, but writes: "it's not about thrift. The craving for bargains springs from something much deeper. Low price is an end and a victory in itself, a way to wrestle control from the baffling mystery that is retail. Alas, that control is largely illusory..." There is so much in this book it's hard to compress into a few words, but safe to say that everyone will learn something new. It begins with history: You've heard of Frank Woolworth but you probably didn't know that he practically invented the low wage, high turnover model for retail workers. You've heard of White Sales, but you probably don't know why John Wanamaker invented them. You know about bar codes and container ships and shopping carts, but you might not know how they transformed retail. Cheap shows that price is more than a number, it's a powerful emotional trigger that gets us to buy or not depending on a number of easily manipulated but poorly understood (by us) factors. High "reference" prices compel us to buy things we otherwise would not, under the mistaken impression that we're getting a good deal. "Shrouding" helps us overlook the true price of our purchases, and the right "framing" can fool us into thinking that a mattress or piece of jewelry is our heart's desire, when really it's just a bad deal. And don't get me started on outlet malls! Cheap food (I work in the food industry and the observations on shrimp farming are spot-on), cheap furniture (oh no, Ikea too?), cheap labor (it's not just China), cheap loans, it's all in there, and a whole lot more. Shell traces the path of cheap from sweatshops abroad to the economic problems we're facing here today; unemployment, job insecurity, flat incomes. What you won't find is preaching. This book is not about setting policy, it's about informing consumers about where we are and how we got here. It will open your eyes a little wider and help you keep your wallet closed a little longer.

I like to read in bed and because the Wife is sensitive to light, I have bought numerous battery operated reading lights - all made in China. No matter what brands I purchase or how much I spend, within a couple of months the lights break and I'm left using a flashlight to read in bed until I go out and buy another. A reading light is quite a simple device consisting of a battery, LED, and wires all linked together in a circuit. This circuit is then encased in plastic, metal or a combination of the two. Although simple, these lights break within a few months. Sometimes the cases break, other times the soldering fails somewhere in the circuit. I try to repair them but the repairs inevitably fail after a few weeks. Over the past 5 years alone I have probably spent $150 on reading lights. After reading Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppell Shell I now understand that my frustration is the result of the replacement of quality goods by shoddy ones made in China in order to maximize profit and minimize expense. This exchange of shoddy for quality has happened as Americans have pursued low price at the expense of all else. We save money in the short term by pursuing low prices but lose much in the process including long lasting quality goods and decent paying jobs. Shell writes for the Atlantic and is a professor of journalism at Boston University. Throughout the book I searched for Shell's anti-capitalist bias, but didn't find it anywhere. Instead she writes "Trade is and must be free," and believes that regulation and unionization is not the answer to our obsession with low prices. She quotes Adam Smith liberally and suggests that Smith himself would not be pleased with the junk on the shelves of America's superstores. She writes that Smith advocated a system whereby workers earned a decent wage to purchase a decent life, and supporting that system were Smith's heroes - consumers buying the goods and services made by the workers at fair prices. These prices weren't inflated: the consumer received a quality product that performed the job it was intended to do. Shell discusses the usual suspects - Wal-mart, dollar stores and discount chain stores - but she zeroes in on Ikea as a firm that has built a mythos around itself to shield it from the fact that it uses illegally harvested hardwoods from the Russian Far East and Asia (Ikea is the third largest consumer of wood in the world), and sources production to some of the lowest paying companies on the planet. Shell cites a table that sells for $69. A master craftsman admitted that he couldn't buy the wood for that price, let alone build the table. Ikea headquarters exudes an aura of cultishness that is more reminiscent of Scientology than of a business. There workers design products that are meant to be made and ship cheaply - not to be comfortable. The products are given cutesy names that slaps a "happy face" onto what in essence is a soulless product. While every move by American

I've always considered myself a sophisticated consumer, able to see through the marketing ploys of restaurants, car dealers, department stores, etc. to obtain real value. But then on the drive home from work I heard Ellen Shell on the radio, bought Cheap, and, almost despite myself, read it in two days. It's frightening, eye opening, and not at all what I expected. I now know that the marketers are one step ahead of even the most savvy shoppers. By masking the true costs and value of merchandise, our perceptions of value are based to a surprising extent on the marketers manipulations. The disturbing thing here is that this occurs at virtually all price points. Whether we shop discount "big box" stores or high end department stores with "designer" merchandise, our perceptions of "beating the system" are illusory. Opening with a fascinating history of discounting, from the days where "cheap" was an insult to its rise as the holy grail of the mass marketer, CHEAP moves on to the economics and psychology that drive our purchasing patterns. It goes much farther, though, looking at the impact on the cultures and environments where these bargains are produced. In an increasingly globalized economy, we can't afford to ignore these impacts as--CHEAP ably shows--they are already at our doorstep. Extremely well written and thought provoking, this book offers a fresh and alarming perspective not only on our current economic condition, but on our own often self defeating behavior. It's forever changed the way I'll shop...for the better.