twinniefan
Well-known member
The public must share some blame
Hi Laundress,
In my view the public,re:consumer HAS to share some of the blame for this economic mess we are in, you see in my experience and I have worked in retail type environments for nearly 30 years,the public want everything cheap, I now work as a store manager for a very large charity organization and believe it or not people still want to barter and haggle over our prices for our goods,imagine trying to haggle over a flipping $4.00 shirt or blouse or $6.00 pair of jeans but they do they want the best of both worlds they want top quality however do not wish to pay accordingly for it.
I dont know about the U.S. situation, but here in Australia this is why we dont manufacture washing machines anymore and very few fridges either, people only want stuff that is cheap, I recall the fridge repairman a couple of weeks ago telling me that fairly soon there will be even more Chinese cheap imports in whitegoods and they will be fairly cheap, I think he said the brands were Hisense,Centrex(which have been here awhile i think.),Hotpoint(no not the european Hotpoint a chinese version.)
Anoter poster mentioned how do you compete with $2-$3 an hour nations, well you simply cannot unless we are prepared to accept that standard of living which I think we would all find unacceptable,mind you as for here I think the unions have a bit to answer for also, wanting people to be paid penalty rates which can go up to double time and a half and of coursde we mostly get 17.5% loading on holiday pay,pricing many industries out of the market.
Senior and executive management have also contributed to this also with this mantra of a company's shareholders having to always come first and their cunstomer base a distant second and their employees an even more distant third,for example senior management here at where I work have made some really appalling decsions in the last few months, and who wears the blame and the mud the paid staff,i.e. store managers and our poor loyal volunteers, many of which I am sad to say simply gave it all away when they saw what they thought was a charity/welfare organization suddenly being run like it was a corporation.
The end result,unhappy staff/volunteers who are now leaving the organization and store now undermanned and more pressure put on the remaining staff/volunteers, this situation did not exist 2-3 years ago,we had a system which was working okay,but soem senior manangement decided they needed to hire a corporate type from a very large retail chain who thinks he can run a charity like it was a retail chain.
Cheers.
Steve.
Hi Laundress,
In my view the public,re:consumer HAS to share some of the blame for this economic mess we are in, you see in my experience and I have worked in retail type environments for nearly 30 years,the public want everything cheap, I now work as a store manager for a very large charity organization and believe it or not people still want to barter and haggle over our prices for our goods,imagine trying to haggle over a flipping $4.00 shirt or blouse or $6.00 pair of jeans but they do they want the best of both worlds they want top quality however do not wish to pay accordingly for it.
I dont know about the U.S. situation, but here in Australia this is why we dont manufacture washing machines anymore and very few fridges either, people only want stuff that is cheap, I recall the fridge repairman a couple of weeks ago telling me that fairly soon there will be even more Chinese cheap imports in whitegoods and they will be fairly cheap, I think he said the brands were Hisense,Centrex(which have been here awhile i think.),Hotpoint(no not the european Hotpoint a chinese version.)
Anoter poster mentioned how do you compete with $2-$3 an hour nations, well you simply cannot unless we are prepared to accept that standard of living which I think we would all find unacceptable,mind you as for here I think the unions have a bit to answer for also, wanting people to be paid penalty rates which can go up to double time and a half and of coursde we mostly get 17.5% loading on holiday pay,pricing many industries out of the market.
Senior and executive management have also contributed to this also with this mantra of a company's shareholders having to always come first and their cunstomer base a distant second and their employees an even more distant third,for example senior management here at where I work have made some really appalling decsions in the last few months, and who wears the blame and the mud the paid staff,i.e. store managers and our poor loyal volunteers, many of which I am sad to say simply gave it all away when they saw what they thought was a charity/welfare organization suddenly being run like it was a corporation.
The end result,unhappy staff/volunteers who are now leaving the organization and store now undermanned and more pressure put on the remaining staff/volunteers, this situation did not exist 2-3 years ago,we had a system which was working okay,but soem senior manangement decided they needed to hire a corporate type from a very large retail chain who thinks he can run a charity like it was a retail chain.
Cheers.
Steve.