Customer Reviews

Shopportunity!: How to Be a Retail Revolutionary

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a book about what's wrong with American retailing, written by a consultant to consumer products companies. If you're interested in this topic, go read any of the books by Paco Underhill, such as "Why We Buy," which are far superior to this entertaining but ultimately pointless and borderline offensive romp.

Daniel Akst complained sufficiently about the book's self-centered elitism in his Wall Street Journal review, so I'll touch on other matters here. The other major problem with this book is a more fundamental one: who is the audience? It seems to be written with Kate Newlin's potential client base -- retailers and consumer product companies -- in mind, now that Newlin has her own consulting firm and has parted company with ace trendmeistress Faith Popcorn. Possibly due to the editor's intervention or some other such afterthought, it looks like it was papered over as a call to arms among the buying public to incite a revolution in dynamic buying experiences. to bring the thrill back to shopping. There are more buyers among the general consumer public, apparently, than there are product managers at consumer product companies.

Yawn. Who cares? There are some well-intentioned and well-placed remarks about Wal-Mart, bad supermarkets, Dell, and Whole Foods, most of which have been covered better elsewhere. Some of the dirty secrets of "outlet store" retailing are enlightening. Apart from that, it's hard to imagine a reader caring much about this, just as it is hard to imagine anyone other than marketing professionals caring about "dynamic connectedness of brands," or whatever it was.

Instead, we find out more than we ever wanted to know about Kate Newlin's life shopping in a chic Manhattan neighborhood and in the Hamptons. She must be a real bore at cocktail parties. We also find out a few things we may not have wanted to know about how consumer products companies plumb the depths of the human psyche in order to find more effective ways of selling to them - such as "hypnosis focus groups," an idea that makes my flesh crawl just thinking about it.

Worst of all are the "rules" at the end of each chapter, which also seem like an editor's device to make the book more salable (on the "all popular nonfiction books must have lists" principle) but are equally pointless - e.g., Rule #12: "Let Brands Transform You."

By the way, I bought this book as an impulse item at my local Barnes & Noble Superstore. No, an aspiring young novelist working at the store did not passionately recommend the book to me. No one gave me my choice of two books with a postage-paid return mailer in which to return the one I didn't like. I did not take advantage of the overpriced coffee and stale pastries in the cafe. But yes, the casher did look up my discount card number so that I could get an additional 5% off. (No, that did not make me feel cheap and spoil the entire experience for me.)

I loved it and bought 10 copies for friends and colleagues. It's the first business-focused book I've read that reads like literature. She's an excellent and entertaining writer and poses some very interesting points. E.g. We save money at Wal-Mart but pay more in taxes to cover the healthcare costs of Wal-Mart's un-insured employees. She reminds us to EXPECT great service, quality and product-performance that aligns with its advertising claims -- rather than just buying the cheapest thing available from a surly clerk in a disorganized big box store. Support the little guy and feel better about spending your hard-earned money!

After reading this fantastic analysis of the American retail market, I realize why I just cannot bring myself to go shopping in the majority of stores in this country. It brings no joy, no reward, just a major headache. Newlin explains in a succinct, entertaining style the reasons we shop. And, if we can just listen to some of her insights, shopping once again can be a fun and joyous activity.

As a commercial actress who makes her living selling everything from paper towels, body lotions and automobiles, I was mesmerized by this book and had to take a figurative "look in the mirror" regarding my own consumer habits and responsibilities as a "peddler" of these products. Kate Newlin's literary prowess and indomitable wit make these "hard facts" regarding the downward spiral of our consumerism; the ever-growing (and ever related) obesity epidemic; and the complete disregard for the "hourly" workers in this country almost palatable. Her true love for the ideal "Shopportunity" is infectious and makes us want to be more conscience, responsible, and truly fulfilled members of the human race. I highly recommend this book.

Shopping has become a hunt for the cheapest price. Stop the insanity!

Read this book and "re"discover how to enjoy shopping and buying, and stop focusing on just the price you paid.

Being the Book a holic that I am, the title of this book intrigued me.

Hey, I'm always looking for a better way to shop.

This book delivered above and beyond my expectations and knocked me off my feet.

Here's why:

I expected to read about how I can get better deals when shopping. What I found was so much more: How to Value myself more as a person!

Kate Newlin the Author boldly and precisely explains both by example and her own professional experience how our culture has devalued ourselves by buying cheap for sake of soley price instead of buying quality that which our souls may cry for.

There are certain stores that she mentions that when we buy from them it keeps a child in a sweatshop in another country in business. All because of our culture's thrill of the deal.

I give this book five stars because I am all about truth. And this book delivers.

We live in denial as a society on a daily basis. In shattering my own denial in buying cheap instead of buying the quality that my heart really wants, I learned something about myself in deserving quality that my heart and soul longs for.

It hit me between the eyes of why I passed on what felt good to my soul. It has now helped me regain the true thrill of hunt in shopping.

But this time is different.

You are in for a real treat if you are someone who loves to learn how to be a better you in this world. By reading this book, you will discover your world unfolding in a magnificient way.

If on the other hand you are someone who's looking for books on how to get a better price on the deals in the world of shopping you probably will not like this book.

You may even hate it.

As Paco Underhill says on her front cover ( He is the author of the best seller book, Why We Buy)

It's a dazzling dose of tough love for America's addiction to the cheap.

Buy it and see for yourself.

This book is a good addition to any retail strategists library. The author goes into great detail explaining that its gotta to stop being about the lowest price for those retailers trying to survive in a Wal*Mart world. Having been in retail for 17 years; 10 as a pricing professional, this book explains that its not always about the price when a customer is shopping.

Customers are looking for a solution to a problem when they go shopping whether its food, clothing, transportation or other needs. This book explains that its not always price that can win the battle; granted this is not always the issue when it comes to a consumer's level of income. The point is, by showing the consumer that there is more to the deal than just the price, a retailer can earn the trust and loyalty of the shopper's future needs. The trick though is A, to show the consumer a benefit of shopping with you that goes beyond the price point; customer service, knowledgeable staff, comfortable shopping environment, and then B finding a way to incorporate that into the price where the customer can quantify it and still think they are getting a really good deal.

Its not always about price, but rather what else you can offer the consumer they value and still think they got a good deal for that price.

I think the author has an excellent point! Never realised that one's simple purchase can affect a whole spectrum of people's lives. Makes you want to be a smarter shopper. I'm buying this book for all my friends and family! Very witty writing! Fun and informative reading!

You can often discover a powerful idea by the polarizing reaction that greets it. Kate Newlin's Shopportunity has already put a lot of necks out of joint, including at least one presumably long, pale one at the Wall Street Journal. I suppose you could say that you're going to make more than a few enemies going after Walmart. But that alone doesn't get at what is so deeply disturbing to more than a few folks about Newlin's charming, sophisticated, erudite and appropriately innocent manifesto.

Newlin sees a joyous ritual shattered by obsession, compulsion and some giant corporations that benefit from encouraging our addictive behaviour. We didn't like hearing it about alcohol, drugs, sex, cigarettes, gambling or food -- but we've come to accept that the addiction hypothesis does have a lot to say about the way many of us behave with regard to those substances and rituals.

And now Newlin suggests that bargains and cheap, two gallon jars of pickles, can equally lead to robotic dehumanization, sucking the joy out of what can be a meaningful exploration of the artifacts of human ingenuity, craft, art and technology. An suddenly, denial isn't just a river in Africa once again!

All I can say is that you will understand America and the world better by reading this book, you will understand yourself better too. You'll appreciate shopping more, and what it can be, which is, to Newlin, no less than an art form. What gorillas are to Goodall, boutiques are to Newlin. Does that bug you and feel politically incorrect? I can understand that. But to me, it's beautiful and inspiring as it is surprising. And it's important too, because these places are habitat to a species that means a lot to me and you: the human species. And Newlin has something important, inspiring, studied and deeply felt to say about that species.

And by the way, it's a lot of fun too.

You know from the start the Kate Newlin's Shopportunity is going to focus on a large human canvas. One of the many joys of this book is the humanity with which Newlin explores the rise and fall of retail organizations as well as the talents of the people who work and thrive within them. It should be a hit with anyone interested in understanding the important interplay between what we buy, how we buy, where we buy it and society.

Retail organizations are no different than other organizations, in that they are living, adapting organisms. Individuals serve as parts of all organizations. As individuals develop, mature, and die, organizations have their own life cycles. Some organizations live for a short period of time, others for hundreds and even thousands of years. The question is why.

Organizations, like individual life is finite and timed: there is a natural course for each. However, there are times when individuals as well as organizations fall not as a result of having finished their natural life, but because they were not able to transform at the right time as part of their development.

Newlin's journey inside the box of big box stores reveal how we may again be on the cusp of an enormous change. It is comparable to what a physician can see in a patient. Even a physician needs a physician for health maintenance because every organism has a blind spot about itself. It is through an understanding of the dynamics of an organization - its history and identification of the forces for change that conflict with the present situation - that can lead through conflict, not around it.

In a personally provocative chronicle, Kate Newlin gives us the feeling of actually being there during the heyday - in another time, in the stores and in the minds of customers and proprietors alike. Her time and effort researching the book, her personal journey through it, result in fluency with her topic and a fluency of writing that makes the reading almost effortless.