Retail – The Buying CollectorCategory: Business
Article posted by: Jon Richards
There is a huge element of the retail industry that goes on in the west that is based upon the obsessional needs of the collector â€" that is the type of consumer that is quite peculiar to western decadent living, the type that has developed off the back of colonialism and imperial sensibilities â€" and that is the need to buy things that are not necessary.
It is unlikely that in, say, Burma, you will find someone who collects old copies of the NME, or has an attic room dedicated to Cliff Richard (unlikely, but not beyond the realms of possibility), whereas one would find it difficult to find a single person in the UK, to pick a country that has familiarity to so many, that does not collect something, no matter how small, and how much it does seem like the habit of a collector. But it is in this, and it deserves study if it has not already been subject to one, that such a huge amount of the retail business is based. If people stopped collecting things, anything, then the whole system would be left with a gaping hole that would be difficult to climb out of.
The buying habits of the collector, be it the model train enthusiast, the shoe lover or the record buyer, are the most valuable of things to the retailer â€" highly predictable. The buying collector has favourite shops, favourite times to go to them, and favourite habits when in them. And when you have a predictable clientele you can exploit them to the maximum effect. That is not meant to sound insidious; it is all part of the unsaid contract entered into between collector and retailer at the beginning of the relationship. The collector wants what the retailer has and is prepared to be led down any garden path of interest that strings off from there. So if a record collector buys a Miles Davis album, and it is on the shelf next to Coltrane albums, the collector buys them both, is happy, as is the retailer, and the unspoken contract is fulfilled.
Posted By: Jon Richards
Web: http://www.bristoljobs.co.uk
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