[PDF] Consumer Durable Goods eBook

Author : Michel Kostecki
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 156 pages
File Size : 29,34 MB
Release : 2013-03-14
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1475728190

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Do we need a new car or a new refrigerator every ten years? What happens to our PC which is exchanged for a new model every three years? Why do our shoes last only a year or so, while those of our great grandfather served for a genera tion? Are businesses deliberately marketing products in a way which encourages sub-optimal use and induces consumers to buy new products? More and more consumers respond ''yes'' objecting to the business practices which reduce the life span of a product or pay no attention to efficiency in con sumption. The growing concem with sub-optimal use of consumer durables arises as a response to the volume of waste, as wen as to the growing conviction that over-consumption is encouraged by marketing techniques and approaches that favor lesser durability and sub-optimal use. There are signs that those things will have to change. Firstly, client orientation - a condition sine qua non of marketing success in the saturated markets of rich countries - is gaining popularity. Consumers are better informed and more influential and "intelligent consumption" is on the rise. Buyers are becoming more and more hostile towards marketing manipulation, inducing them to consume faster, more and at higher prices. The public increas ingly resists messages in advertisements (preventive resistance) which are pre dominantly persuasive (rather than educational or informative) and conceived to stimulate demand for the "new", the superficial and the fashionable.

Author : Robert J. Gordon
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 744 pages
File Size : 30,93 MB
Release : 2007-12-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0226304604

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American business has recently been under fire, charged with inflated pricing and an inability to compete in the international marketplace. However, the evidence presented in this volume shows that the business community has been unfairly maligned—official measures of inflation and the standard of living have failed to account for progress in the quality of business equipment and consumer goods. Businesses have actually achieved higher productivity at lower prices, and new goods are lighter, faster, more energy efficient, and more reliable than their predecessors. Robert J. Gordon has written the first full-scale work to treat the extent of quality changes over the entire range of durable goods, from autos to aircraft, computers to compressors, from televisions to tractors. He combines and extends existing methods of measurement, drawing data from industry sources, Consumer Reports, and the venerable Sears catalog. Beyond his important finding that the American economy is more sound than officially recognized, Gordon provides a wealth of anecdotes tracing the postwar history of technological progress. Bolstering his argument that improved quality must be accurately measured, Gordon notes, for example, that today's mid-range personal computers outperform the multimillion-dollar mainframes of the 1970s. This remarkable book will be essential reading for economists and those in the business community.