Regards, Ivan
Posted on 01/16/2003 5:17:07 PM PST by MadIvan
Germany's consumer affairs minister wants to ban bargains from the shops, arguing that low-priced products have caused a drop in quality and are confusing customers.
Renate Künast, a member of the Green party, plans to take legal action against shops that practise "price-dumping", or who lure consumers into their stores with fake discount offers. Similar sales tactics are common in Britain and America.
The minister's announcement amounts to a reversal on the part of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's government, which last year scrapped a 70-year-old law that prohibited shops from offering reductions of more than three per cent. They were also barred from holding sales more than twice a year.
The abolition of the law has turned Germany into a nation of frenzied bargain-hunters and has led to the introduction of "money-off" coupons and store cards with names such as Payback and Happy Digits.
A trend has sprung up of so-called Schottische Wochen or Scottish Weeks, when customers are "encouraged to be thrifty". One electronics chain is even using the slogan: "Thrifty means sexy."
A new spirit of entrepreneurship has also emerged, with one fashion shop owner in Oldenburg, northern Germany, offering customers a discount of £13 if they do a headstand on entering his shop. A total of 200 people took up his offer.
But Ms Kunast, who has the backing of several consumer groups, has argued that things have gone too far. She said: "The fact is that quality and safety have their price.
"We don't want to decide on behalf of consumers what they want but the consequences of their shopping habits must be made clear to them."
Ms Kunast, who is also responsible for agriculture and food, said that the quality of food products as well as environmental standards were suffering because of price cuts.
She said: "If you're concerned about the environment and animals being kept in the correct way, this must be calculated into the price."
If prices were constantly reduced, she argued, it would lead to job losses and to less consumer choice.
Germany's Federal Association of Consumer Associations backed Ms Kunast. Its chairman, Edda Müller, said: "Anyone who thinks that meat can be offered as cheaply as dog food has learned nothing from the BSE crisis."
But shop owners hit by the economic crisis in Germany, which has seen profits drop about 2.5 per cent in a year, are in a ruthless price war.
This week's Stern magazine dedicated its cover story to discount shopping.
The magazine said: "Success stories of the hunt for bargains are being relayed at parties and in the works canteen." Ingo Hamm, a consumer psychologist, said Germans were latching on to the new idea of being able to buy cheaply and of playing shops off against each other in the search for the lowest-priced goods. He added: "The thing is it's no longer about owning things, rather about having bought them as cheaply as possible and trumping your friends in the process."
Regards, Ivan
This whole article reminds me of why Mike Myers has so much fun imitating Europeans in his "Austin Powers" movies and such - they give him so much fodder to work with!
What add odd mixture of neurosis and forced "free spiritedness" these folks present.
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Preview, preview, preview.
Ivan, wir Deutschen haben ueberhaupt keinen Vogel - Niemann kann die Mehrwertsteuer d'rauf bezahlen.
Imagine, banning sales at retail outlets.
Duh?
Ich bin fertig...
Imagine, banning sales at retail outlets.
No kidding! I could never survive there as I refuse to buy anything unless it's at least 25% off - hence my somewhat varied wardrobe. Thank goodness for my wife's power to make some of my stuff just "disappear" when I'm not looking.
Now there is a slogan that is really going to do it. ( / sarcasm )
LOL.
Don't you hate that? My in-house representative of the clothes police often acts as judge, jury and executioner on some of my favorite work shirts without giving me any chance to save them.
Tut, tut, tut. How un-PC of the Germans to infer that the Scots are, er, cheap.
Tight with a penny, and militant about it.
Boiler-makers-R-us.
Bestimmt! Also besser als einen Vogel zu haben.
"Wenn man einen Vogel hat, muss die Mehrwertsteuer bezahlen."
("When you're crazy ['have a bird'], you've got to pay the sales tax on it.")
But seriously, folks--I suppose there are two political factors why German Law, and now Miss German Bureaucrat, make deep discounting illegal:
1. The cartel-cozy mindset of the ruling class. Never been consumer-friendly, never will.
2. Is the 'Mehrwertsteuer' (Value Added tax) assessed as a percentage of the selling price? If so, the kleptocrats don't want to see consumer prices erode, for obvious reasons. If the tax is uncoupled somehow from the discounts, this is not a factor.
...Yes
Hmmm.
I think she's a Cajun in disguise.
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