- A few shirts and a few trousers, all looking very similar, hang in the closet
- A shirt is plucked from the leftmost corner, the trouser is picked from the rightmost corner and worn
- As they are laundered , they join the back of the queue in the hanging sequence; thereby ensuring an automatic first in first out principle !
- When a hole appears in any of the garments, it is thrown away
- When there comes a day when not enough shirts or trousers are hanging in the closet, a shopping expedition ensues and half a dozen items are bought and the cycle repeats all over again !!
The last of the above happened recently to yours truly and off I trooped off to the mall to replenish supplies.
By way of background, you must know that this is the way men's clothes are sold in India
- An anemic looking shirt or trouser is priced at a king's ransom. Let us say that in India it is something like Rs 3000 (circa $50 ; a ridiculous price to pay for a shirt)
- Random words such as 'Uncrushables", "Perfect Fit", "Wrinkle Free", "Soft", "Smooth" , all of which are nonsense, are displayed prominently to justify the price tag. Of course they all mean absolutely nothing.
- Then a promotion scheme is run wherein you get 2 items free, if you buy 3, or even Buy One and Get One Free (BOGOF is an accepted word in Indian English)
- Everybody is happy
Men at the level of fashion consciousness as this blogger , shop for clothes as follows
- Enter the store. Go to the section where their size is stocked
- Pick the first three shirts on display
- Pick the first three trousers on display
- Go to the cash counter and pay
- Snigger at the lady draping and preening in front of the mirror and and suggest rudely that no amount of this or that garment can hide the fact that she needs to go to the gym !
- Exit store, preferably within 5 minutes
Accordingly, I entered a store and performed all of the above maneuvers. And then when I went to the cash counter to pay, the guy said I had to pay for all of them. I told him that I would of course pay for all as per whatever promotion scheme was running. He said there was no promotion scheme and I had to pay full price for all. WHAT ? I have never heard anything more ridiculous. He repeated that I had to pay full price. I said, I don't understand. He patiently said - No promotion. The he spelt it out letter by letter - N O ; P R O M O T I O N.
I stalked out of the store yelling that he must be joking and if he expected me to pay $50 for a shirt, he must be a member of the Monster Raving Loony Party (such a political party actually exists in Her Majesty's land). I stormed into the next shop and went through the same sequence.
No promotion. Stormed out and went to the next shop. No promotion. Next shop. No promotion. There wasn't anymore shops to enter into. And I had no shirt to wear tomorrow. So I went back to the first shop, tail between my legs, paid $ 50 and bought just one shirt and slunk back home. There is still a huge hole in my closet, but I am damned if I am going to pay the ridiculous full price tag to fill it up. I shall launder and iron my clothes twice a day and live with just a pair or two !!!
This facetious post underscores a serious issue. The explosion of promotions and consumer behaviour which has now been tailored to buy only promoted items. All promotions are a distortion on a fair price-value equation. The true price of a product can never be determined when crazy promotions are running all the time. The seller tries to hoodwink the consumer, the consumer shops around for what he believes is the best promotion and this has become a complicated dance.
And so, apparel manufacturers stopping all promotions is a good thing. But then they have cheekily not cut the price tag at all. It remains the ridiculous $50. That's absurd. I live in India and not in the US of A. I am not shopping on Bond Street or the Champs-Élysées. A shirt should cost $10. OK $20. Not $50.
Every manufacturer has withdrawn promotions at the same time. This smacks of collusion. Is the Competition Commission looking ? Or have the stocks of shirts and trousers of the worthies not diminished enough to warrant a visit to the shop ?
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6 comments:
This is off season. Try during festival times. I have stopped buying clothes long back. Tailoring myself to fit into old sizes
Welcome Back Rip Van Winkle.
a shirt for $ 10? or $ 20. Now in 2018?.
1. Some women choose their clothing with the same method and try to shop by the same method.
2. Be glad you are not a woman.
3. You shop in store?? What about ordering from the internet?
4. One very large chain of department stores tried reducing prices and not running promotions. Within a year, the experiment was over, and promotions returned.
5. Your full-price shirt just paid for all my half-price shirts.
Thala..if u u have to start with Nesbo..snowman was the better of the lot for me. But I guess you would enjoy redbreast if u liked day of jackal. Moreover it has interesting titbits on WWII from Norway
@Gilsu - Bice try - to "talior yourself". Wishing you the best of luck :):)
@Kumar - Hey - I am no longer a corporate type. Why would I buy a $50 shirt ?? I will wear whatever I can get for $ 20 :):):)
@Anne - Ha ha. Touche. Although I cannot believe that any woman will shop for clothes the way a man does :)
@Gilsu - Thanks for the recommendation. I shall try it.
By the way, you would be better off buying clothes in US of A. You can find good shirts for less than $50. A couple of years ago on one of my trips I decided to not bring 2 suitcases full of presents for relatives at home and buy everything in India since a lot of stuff was made in India anyway, but that was the first and the last time I ever made that mistake. I now reverse convert in dollars and freak out every time I am in India.
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