Shopportunity!

De: Kate Newlin

Narrado por: Kimberly Schraf

Today's shopping culture is turning the shopper into a zombie—and the thrill of the hunt into the robotic management of inventory. For millions of us, the sizzle of a daily shopping experience has devolved into a relentless acquisition of the okay, available, and cheap. Why are we willing to pay $3.50 for a latte at Starbucks, but bristle at a 10-cent increase in the price of toothpaste? Why do we drive miles out of our way to buy a bag of 100 razor blades for 50-cents less than at our local store, and then spend $3.99 on a tub of pretzels that we don't need? We're wasting our time and money at the cost of our patience and good will.

In Shopportunity!, marketing expert Kate Newlin looks behind the aisles of our best known retailers to reveal that the dopamine rush of getting a good deal is confusing shoppers' wants with their needs. Packed with perceptive reporting, Shopportunity! provides an insider's view of how marketers create a brand, and the overwhelming power of retailers to interfere with the transformational joys that great brands bring to our daily lives. It is time for shoppers to revolutionize their shopping experience and take the power away from retailers. Culminating in a Shopper's Bill of Rights, Shopportunity! will liberate shoppers—as well as the manufacturers and retailers who serve them—from the tyranny of the cheap.

Read by Kimberly Schraf

©2006 Kate Newlin; (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers

This opportunity wasted

I was hoping that this book would be able to provide a different perspective on the state of business today. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with both the content and the narration, which was distracting. If you enjoy the voice from "Desperate Housewives" this narrator is a dead-ringer. Otherwise, it exacerbates the slow-moving pace of the book's content.

I almost always avoid an abridbed audiobook, but in this case, that would have made it a far more enjoyable listening experience. The concepts are very, very basic, which may very well be the point of the book, but the author does very little to delve any deeper into the subject matter than a cursory glance would afford. In the immortal and never-uttered words of Sherlock Holmes, it was all "Elementary, my Dear Watson."

Just in time!!!

Kate Newlin hit the nail on the head. Working in a service industry, it has become apparrent to me that the level of service and experience that is relayed to the customer has exceedingly diminished. This has led to business grabbing for the short straw, discounting the services and de-valuing their business all together. I was able to take alot of information from this book and communicate to colleagues and accounts that it is all about the experience, not the price tag. In fact, we all the deserve the best and there is a customer base out there willing to pay for it!