天天用英语365天第113天
daisy
1、Not only are internet giants disrupting retail as we knew it and threatening its traditional models…but larger cultural changes are also reshaping consumer expectations, leading consumers to increasingly value experience over ownership, convenience over wide choice, sustainability over low prices and personalization over standardization.
2、By contrast, today’s middle classes have seen their purchasing power stagnate or decline over the last three decades. Higher income inequalities are not a good thing for retail because the super rich have a lower propensity to consume. Retail needs the middle classes to be richer because they have a higher propensity to consume.
3、Shopping doesn’t generate status anymore: a lot of the products that provided status in the 1960s (cars, TV sets…) are now cheaper or just not built to last. In our throw-away culture, owning things doesn’t come with status. Throw-away items merely provide a quick fix.
4、Increasingly few teenagers now choose to hang out with friends at the mall. Shopping is also less frequently listed as a “hobby” today.
5、There are basically two ways shopping can be reshaped to fit new consumer expectations: it can either be made more painless and seamless — that’s what accounts for the rise of convenience stores and the concept behind Amazon Go — , or shopping can be made about the experience rather than the products.
6、Sometimes the business, governance and organization models that come with it are a radical alternative to traditional business ownership: for example, the ‘commons’ could make a comeback. The commons is the cultural, infrastructural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society that are held in common, not owned privately.
7、So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilisation will die. (William Morris)
8、William Morris was not only an author, he started numerous workshops to revive old forgotten Medieval arts. And his art work became exceedingly popular with the British bourgeoisie. So paradoxically enough, Morris built a gigantic business empire with the craftsmanship he sold and became immensely rich in the process.
9、In Morris’ utopia, everyone is a maker, which questions what it means to work and consume. The shift in values we are witnessing today doesn’t just affect consumption, but our relationship to work and identity as well.