Hey guys so today I’m going to touch on the power of materialism and to see if we are what we buy. So to dive strait into it, in today’s market we have numerous stores that are classified as either “high class” or “luxury” brands these include businesses such as Vouge, Gucci and Prada which capitalize on the mass consumer attaching financial and social status value on the amount of higher quality products any one person owns/can afford. It is this obsession with societal classes in regards to financial situations of individuals that creates business for these luxury products but are we as the consumer really aware of what constitutes a luxury product?

The answer to this question is no we as a standard consumer cant tell the difference between a luxury brand sneaker and a standard brand sneaker and we can be easily conned into buying a standard sneaker for the price of a luxury item and i’m not just saying this and actual social marketing experiment run by Payless shoes where they opened a fake luxury brand store where they sold the same shoes that they had in stock at there standard store but at 1800% marked up prices turning what was originally a $35 shoe into a $645 shoe, if you are interested to know more click the link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPLWTT3ZVMo).

The Crazy thing about this stunt that Payless Shoes pulled is that it actually worked we as the consumers couldn’t tell the difference and willing paid the specified amount assuming that the price was an indicator of quality when in fact in this case it was not and the driving force behind this type of consumer behavior is Materialism the sheer need to have nice things is what drives the consumers in the Payless Shoes case to buy products even though we are not qualified to appraise a products value so the next question id pose is are we really what we buy or do we just take shelter in the fact that when we buy a slightly more expensive product it somehow reflects status? ill leave that for you to think about however i think that we shouldn’t be blindly spending excessive amounts of hard earned money on products that may not be worth what the business is charging, well at least not until we have done our research.

References

Payless opens fake luxury shoe store as prank, ABC News (2018), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPLWTT3ZVMo

GG Marmont matelassé leather super mini bag, Guuci (2019), https://www.gucci.com/au/en_au/pr/women/handbags/womens-mini-bags/gg-marmont-matelasse-leather-super-mini-bag-p-476433DSVRT1000?gclid=Cj0KCQjwg73kBRDVARIsAF-kEH_pet1waEDDj1TPzqPs8KlfRMS4vK3NBUu-ViX0ttc-LfIjqLqvIZQaAnoQEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Micheal R. Solomon Et al, (2019), Consumer Behavior buying, having , being 4th edition, Pearson Australia

Payless Opened a Fake Luxury Store, ‘Palessi,’ to See How Much People Would Pay for $20 Shoes, T.L Stanley 2018, https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/payless-opened-a-fake-luxury-store-palessi-to-see-how-much-people-would-pay-for-20-shoes/