Consumer behavior

“ If you wish the consumer to be guaranteed, both as to value and as to healthfulness, you are forced to know and to determine all that constitutes good and honest production, to be continually at the heels of the manufacturer, and to guide him at every step. ”

“ Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. ”

“ There is not enough encouragement in the present situation to lull to inactivity any one who is interested in the improvement of the producer’s conditions, but just enough to prevent complete discouragement and to suggest promising fields for future work in the interest of those who make what others use.
MORE CONSCIENCE FOR THE CONSUMER THE consumer is he who uses wealth. Each of us, therefore, is a consumer. The wealth which we use is of two classes. The first includes natural products; the second, those commodities which have been made from natural products through human agency. ”

“ Food is set on our tables ready to eat. It might as well have been created that way, for all our concern. The thousands of operations that go into an article before the consumer buys it—no, there is no reason why use and want should make us callous and indifferent to the hows and wherefores. ”

“ Does the manufacturer exist for the consumer or does the consumer exist for the manufacturer? If the consumer will not--says he cannot--buy what the manufacturer has to offer, is that the fault of the manufacturer or the consumer? ”

“ Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. ”

“ When we consider the amount of pleasure which it is possible to derive from one’s own useful, well-directed labor, compared with that which comes from buying and using the results of other people’s work, we know that the permanent substitution of the consumer’s advantage for the producer’s joy in labor cannot be a part of progress. If the world is to move forward, the consumer’s leisure, which is the chief advantage of the present system of production, must be made the means of restoring the maker’s pleasure in his work. ”

“ The portion of her people who are engaged as factors,--for this is the true calling of the man who is a regular agent between the common producer and the common consumer,--are of a high class as factors, but not of the high class of merchants. ”

“ Today we seldom know who slaughtered the meat or canned the fruit we eat, who made the clothing or utensils we use; shoddy articles and unwholesome food can be sold in quantity with little fear of the consumer's anger. ”

“ The consumer, in fact, in so high a civilization, so arrogant a luxuriousness, and so impatient an expectancy as characterize him in our land and age, is ever ready to take the alarm and to pour out the phials of his wrath upon those whom he merely suspects of taking a course which may keep a feather out of his bed, a spice out of his dish, or a coal out of his fire ”

“ Those who are sensitive to consumer needs and services and recognize that well-informed consumers mean business-repeat sales and sound market relationships-can expect to be rewarded with continuing opportunities to serve and profit. ”

“ National Consumers Week 1987 is dedicated to reminding us that the exercise of these rights helps to maintain the vigor of our economic system-creating positive pressure for better products, services, and warranties-and that consumer education is a lifelong process. ”

“ The interests of the consumer of any commodity whatsoever should always prevail over the interests of the producer. ”

“ Suppose every year new millions were flocking to her shores, and every one of those new millions in a few years, as soon as they tasted the delights of a broader life, would become as great a consumer as any one of her own people. ”

“ But in the final analysis it is the knowledgeable consumer and the responsible business person whose decisions will determine the success or failure of products and services in the competitive marketplace. ”

“ It is not, however, enough for the consumer to know the producer. The latter also must have opportunity to get acquainted with the world for which he labors. If he is to feel the usefulness of his work he must have a good general education and a broad outlook. ”

“ They consist also of what may be called the policy of the whole business—the quick comprehension of the fluctuating wants of the consumer, the extent to which these may be led, the extent to which they must be followed, the constant power of adjusting the supply of a commodity to the demand. ”

“ The standardization that effects large economies for the consumer results in profits of such gross magnitude to the producer that he can scarcely know what to do with his money. But his effort must be sincere, painstaking, and fearless. ”

“ A conglomerate of the readings mentioned above is the mug shot of the abstract consumer, behind whom are all the others who constitute their individuality through the transactions that make up the market. A used car or computer salesman, a small retailer, and a university professor identify themselves in different ways in and through the market. ”

“ The consumer hears what the producer received, the producer hears what the consumer paid, and then somebody gets to thinking and talking. Discussions lead to investigations, and investigations lead to conferences. ”

“ To all interested in or concerned with this great industry, there is one thing to be remembered above all else—study and test not only the mechanical construction and perfection of your product but know from every conceivable angle what the user or consumer is going to demand of it. If this be done, and done thoroughly, and exhaustively, you will build the appliance of the best materials obtainable, because it must wear well ”

“ Every article in this list, which might be lengthened, can now be made or prepared for use out of the house of the consumer, not only better but more cheaply by the concentration of capital and labor in large industrial enterprises. ”

“ As regards all those things which are likely to remain in the hands of individual enterprise, as, for example, things in which taste plays an important rôle—garments, hats, wallpaper, furniture, musical instruments, other instruments of pleasure such as athletic goods, bicycles, automobiles, steam launches, photographic apparatus—the retailing of these is likely to remain as much a matter of private enterprise as the production of them.
As regards the necessaries of life the consumer should be able to get them at the lowest possible price. ”

“ What we make goes direct to the consumer and pays him for his work. The middle man who buys from the manufacturer and sells to the consumer and makes a profit out of articles that are not better but frequently worse for going through his hands does not exist here. ”

“ The purely individual action of Consumers, however, can have but little effect for good. For only comparatively few have sufficiently developed social consciences to realize the desirability of such action; and even if more had, their means of discovering which goods are justly made are so limited as seriously to hamper their activity. ”

“ The industry and conscientious perseverance of the kneaders cannot be too highly commended, but the consumer of their product had better remain in ignorance of the perspiration. I prefer not to live upon the sweat of other men’s brows. ”

“ As the workman may conform to his standard or may be ambitious to surpass it, so the intending consumer may be counting on known satisfactions or hoping for satisfactions of a kind that 307 he has never known before. ”

“ The judgment of quality is, however, only one side of the art of buying. We have to add to these a knowledge of the conditions prevailing in the various markets of the world, a knowledge of stocks and probable supplies, and given this knowledge, an ability to estimate their effect, together with other conditions, agricultural, political and social, on the price of the commodity. ”

“ In short, all these vices, besides many others which I omit, are multiplied by the extreme complication of mercantile affairs; for products do not pass once only through the greedy clutches of commerce; there are some which pass and repass twenty or thirty times before reaching the consumer. ”

“ In order to completeness and full acceptability to the consumer it must also show the honorific element. It results that the producers of articles of consumption direct their efforts to the production of goods that shall meet this demand for the honorific element. ”

“ All production is for the purpose of ultimately satisfying a consumer. ”

“ Every individual may organize a consumer's league, leaguing himself with the powers of righteousness. Will he read a yellow journal or a pink or a white one? A nickel or two will buy either. He has a dollar; will he go to the theater or buy ten dishes of ice-cream? He decides to buy a book, and more type and paper are made, and more printers are employed; he subscribes to foreign missions and Christian workers penetrate farther into Africa. ”

“ It frequently happens that an element of the standard of living which set out with being primarily wasteful, ends with becoming, in the apprehension of the consumer, a necessary of life; ”

“ The other person to be held responsible for the conditions of manufacture is the consumer. It has taken many hard lessons to teach the consumer this ; some of these came in the form of the loss of little children through the wearing of infected clothes ; others came through the contraction of disease by older people ; and the lessons have been learned by some through a mere acquaintance with the facts. For these, simply to see and know the conditions of the workers was enough, with- out any selfish interest or fear. And many there are who have not yet learned the lesson at all. ”

“ But the human proclivity to emulation has seized upon the consumption of goods as a means to an invidious comparison, and has thereby invested consumable goods with a secondary utility as evidence of relative ability to pay. ”

“ It is too narrow an understanding of production which confines it merely to the making of things. Production includes not merely the making of things, but the bringing of them to the consumer. The merchant or storekeeper is thus as truly a producer as is the manufacturer, or farmer, and his stock or capital is as much devoted to production as is theirs. ”

“ As regards the mass of civilized mankind, the idiosyncrasies of the individual consumers are required to conform to the uniform gradations imposed upon consumable goods by the comprehensive mechanical processes of industry. ”

“ The intention is to prove that we, the consumers, are your property! that we are yours body and soul! that you have an exclusive right over our stomachs and our limbs! that it belongs to you to feed and clothe us on your own terms, whatever be your ignorance, incapacity, or rapacity! ”

“ The balance between consumption and production makes price. The market settles, and alone can settle, that price. Market is the meeting and conference of the consumer and producer, when they mutually discover each other's wants. Nobody, I believe, has observed with any reflection what market is, without being astonished at the truth, the correctness, the celerity, the general equity, with which the balance of wants is settled. ”

“ In short, I consider the wants and tastes of mankind as unlimited. We all wish to add to our enjoyments or to our power. Consumption adds to our enjoyments, accumulation to our power, and they equally promote demand. ”

“ How much do I consume in those provisions which I make for a wider culture through books, pictures, music and the like?" What is your average intake of this world's good things? That measure of consumption will indicate the measure of your responsibility. If you are born to the purple and fare sumptuously in all these ways then the world has a right to demand that you shall render back in corresponding measure that useful service which is your plain duty. ”

“ Seeing that production is limited by consumption, what rule must be followed in distributing the results of production to be consumed in order to develop consumption to the highest possible point, and thereby in turn to create the greatest possible demand for production. ”

“ A, B, and C represent different raw materials, and they are changed by a series of transmutations into A ́ ́ ́, B ́ ́ ́, and C ́ ́ ́, which stand for all the consumers' goods that the society uses. They represent food, clothing, furnishings, vehicles, and countless means of comfort and pleasure. ”

“ But it is not only the object that production provides for consumption. It gives consumption its definite outline, its character, its finish. Just as consumption gives the product its finishing touch as a product, production puts the finishing touch on consumption. ”

“ But our people are lazie, and saying no body will buy and no body will distinguish, is chiefly owing to the want of activity, Industry and care in providing at all or good of their kinds, and bustling a little to introduce and get Customers at first. ”

“ It was indeed their business to make all men, women, and children who passed envy them enough to stop, enter the store, and purchase things to make real life as much as possible like life in the window world. ”

“ I urge consumers, businesses, educators, community organizations, labor unions, the media, and government officials to identify, emphasize, and promote activities during National Consumers Week that draw attention to the importance of service in consumers' purchasing decisions. ”