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A review by flicken
Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell
2.0
The book's central thesis, Gresham's Law applied to consumers goods (i.e. bad products, when seemingly indistinguishable from good products, will quickly dominate the market).
However, the book often veers into side topics, meandering into rants about, inter alia, IKEA's fall-apart furniture, the Levittown houses, and the perennial favorite for bashing: Wal-Mart's low prices/wages.
The book is undeniably biased and one-sided. Shell points out the social ills brought about by discount pricing, but ignores or belittles any social benefits.
The good: the history of discount stores was interesting, and informative. The central thesis is, IMHO, well-founded and fascinating.
The bad: Shell fails to focus on the main thesis, jumping from topic to topic within a chapter, often with side stories or unrelated subjects. For example, a large part of a chapter was devoted to summarizing Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational" research, but not properly tied into the chapter's topic.
However, the book often veers into side topics, meandering into rants about, inter alia, IKEA's fall-apart furniture, the Levittown houses, and the perennial favorite for bashing: Wal-Mart's low prices/wages.
The book is undeniably biased and one-sided. Shell points out the social ills brought about by discount pricing, but ignores or belittles any social benefits.
The good: the history of discount stores was interesting, and informative. The central thesis is, IMHO, well-founded and fascinating.
The bad: Shell fails to focus on the main thesis, jumping from topic to topic within a chapter, often with side stories or unrelated subjects. For example, a large part of a chapter was devoted to summarizing Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational" research, but not properly tied into the chapter's topic.