Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell (2009, Hardcover)

Synopsis
Journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell presents a truly eye-opening report on the catastrophic real cost of the average American consumer's stubborn determination to pay the lowest price possible for goods and services. Shoppers are almost inherently trained to spend as little money as possible for any purchase, but Shell's in-depth report conclusively shows that saving a few cents at the checkout line ends up costing millions in lower wages, increased unemployment, and a proliferation of low-quality, foreign-made merchandise. She also reveals a litany of pricing schemes which manufacturers routinely employ to fool people into thinking that they have scored a great deal, and analyzes the psychological factors behind our compulsion for bargain hunting.

Key Details
Author:	Ellen Ruppel Shell
Language:	English
Publisher:	Penguin Pr
Format:	Hardcover
ISBN-10:	159420215X
ISBN-13:	9781594202155

Size
Length:	296 pages
Thickness:	1.5 in
Weight:	19.2 oz

Publisher's Note
An Atlantic correspondent uncovers the true costÂ?in economic, political, and psychic termsÂ?of our penchant for making and buying things as cheaply as possible

From the shuttered factories of the rust belt to the look-alike strip malls of the sun beltÂ?and almost everywhere in betweenÂ?America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price. This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our timeÂ?the engine of globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world.

Low price is so alluring that we may have forgotten how thoroughly we once distrusted it. Ellen Ruppel Shell traces the birth of the bargain as we know it from the Industrial Revolution to the assembly line and beyond, homing in on a number of colorful characters, such as Gene Verkauf (his name is Yiddish for Â?to sellÂ?), founder of E. J. Korvette, the discount chain that helped wean customers off traditional notions of value. The rise of the chain store in postÂ?Depression America led to the extolling of convenience over quality, and big-box retailers completed the reeducation of the American consumer by making them prize low price in the way they once prized durability and craftsmanship.

The effects of this insidious perceptual shift are vast: a blighted landscape, escalating debt (both personal and national), stagnating incomes, fraying communities, and a host of other socioeconomic ills. ThatÂ's a long list of charges, and it runs counter to orthodox economics which argues that low price powers productivity by stimulating a brisk free market. But Shell marshals evidence from a wide range of fieldsÂ?history, sociology, marketing, psychology, even economics itselfÂ?to upend the conventional wisdom. Cheap also unveils the fascinating and unsettling illogic that underpins our bargain-hunting reflex and explains how our deep-rooted need for bargains colors every aspect of our psyches and social lives. In this myth-shattering, closely reasoned, and exhaustively reported investigation, Shell exposes the astronomically high cost of cheap.

Industry Reviews
"Shell contends that the wrong model -- a transnational capitalism that often puts producers and consumers thousands of miles apart -- suckers us into paying unsustainably low prices, which in turn depresses our own wages."
(07/26/2009)

"Cheap chicken, cheap shirts, cheap sneakers--they're all being paid for by somebody, even if it's not the person taking them home....[Ruppel Shell has] delivered something...valuable: a first-rate job of reporting and analysis. Pay full price for this book....It's worth it."
(07/19/2009)

"[I]n her lively and terrifying book CHEAP, Ellen Ruppel Shell pulls back the shimmery, seductive curtain of low-priced goods to reveal their insidious hidden costs....Shell asserts that even outlet malls and seemingly benign, friendly, progressive stores like IKEA are part of the problem; along with more obvious bad guys like Wal-Mart, they perpetuate a cycle that, far from nurturing creativity and innovation in the marketplace, ultimately benefits a relative few at the very top of the economic chain."
(07/12/2009)

"CHEAP is a first-rate analysis of a consumer culture that has recently been battered by the nation's severe economic dislocation....Ruppel Shell...is not merely a verbal bomb thrower who says things just to make a point. To reach her conclusions, she not only seems to have read most of the available scholarship on merchandising, price theory, and the psychology of decision making, but also to have done a great deal of field reporting. Her on-site descriptions include Ikea's main factory and a Las Vegas outlet mall."
(08/14/2009)