Consumer good

“ But what business ever started with the manufacturer and ended with the consumer? Where does the money to make the wheels go round come from? From the consumer, of course. And success in manufacture is based solely upon an ability to serve that consumer to his liking. He may be served by quality or he may be served by price. He is best served by the highest quality at the lowest price, and any man who can give to the consumer the highest quality at the lowest price is bound to be a leader in business, whatever the kind of an article he makes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The undertaking is praiseworthy, and has accomplished some good. But its effects are limited by obvious causes. It is extremely difficult in many cases for the consumer to discover the conditions of production of what he wishes to buy. It is a nuisance to have to burden himself with such perplexing considerations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The essence of this pseudoresponse to an unanswerable communication is the acceptance and consumption of commodities. The consumer’s compulsion to imitate is a truly infantile need, conditioned by all the aspects of his fundamental dispossession. ”

“ These principles are plain and simple; and it is not our ignorance, so much as the levity, the envy, and the malignity of our nature, that hinders us from perceiving and yielding to them: but we are not to suffer our vices to usurp the place of our judgment.
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. ”

“ I expressed this important need in the following passage of my book. “The true ‘value’ of a thing is neither the price paid for it, nor the amount of present satisfaction it yields to the consumer, but the intrinsic service it is capable of yielding by its right use. ”

“ Bear in mind this; that the first great object of every invention and every improvement is to confer a benefit upon the consumers,—to make the commodity cheap and plentiful. The working man stands in a double character; he is both a producer and a consumer. But we will be bold to say that the question of cheapness of production is a much more important question to be decided in his favour as a consumer, than the question of dearness of production to be decided in his favour as a producer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ In celebration of National Consumers Week, I encourage schools, community organizations, labor unions, businesses, the media, and consumers themselves to help further public awareness of consumer issues and services. I urge American consumers to take advantage of this opportunity to seek and use the wealth of information available to all. ”

“ Whatever tends to enlighten the great body of the people facilitates individual accumulation. A large portion of the productions of industry, especially amongst the humbler classes of the community, is wasted, in addition to that portion which is enjoyed. Every consumption that is saved by habits of order, by knowing the best way of [Pg 366] setting about a thing, by economy in the use of materials, is so much saved of the national capital; and what is saved remains to give new encouragement to the labour of the producer, and to bestow an increase of comforts upon the consumer. ”

“ Consumers need to understand the market economy, both here and abroad, and their options for earning, spending, saving, and investing income. Increased consumer and economic education in schools, workshops, the media, and the distribution of informative materials from government and business give consumers a greater appreciation of their rights and responsibilities in our incomparable American economy. ”

“ I urge all business persons, educators, members of the professions, public officials, consumer leaders, and the media to observe this week by emphasizing and promoting the fundamental importance of consumer rights in our marketplace. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ 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. ”

“ None of the higher or more refined kinds of modern commodities would have any "value" for a barbarous race, however rightly distributed; you may increase the wealth of a nation far more effectively by educating the consumer than by increasing the efficiency of the producer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the range of consumer choice increases, competition compels our businesses to provide even greater value for consumer dollars. Increasingly, business leaders respond to consumer expectations by improving the quality, safety, and effectiveness of their products. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every citizen can benefit from knowing more about consumer laws, rights, and avenues of redress. Many people-including the young, the elderly and the poor-need help in learning about buying skills, financial management, resource conservation methods, and self-help or alternative solutions to economic constraints. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ideal is that where a society exists the main raw materials of the industry shall be bought wholesale instead of retail, and the main products of the industry sold retail instead of wholesale; that thereby middlemen’s and other profits shall be reduced to a reasonable figure, and that the consumer shall get the most efficient possible service with regard to his supplies. ”

“ I call upon government officials, industry leaders, and consumer advocates to provide consumers with information about the lifetime benefits of financial literacy, and I encourage all citizens to take advantage of the resources that can help them become responsible consumers, savers, and investors. ”

“ They saw only the cheapening of the product, the vast increase in the total amount produced, and the piling up of profits, and they beheld in all three results nothing but social advantage. Verily both manufacturer and consumer were benefited. When the more thoughtful turned their attention to the actual makers through whose labors the cloth and the shoes and the pins of specialized industry were produced, they satisfied themselves that the worker must also be a sharer in the benefits of the new system; for, said they, everyone who is a worker is also 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. ”

“ The consumer must also be indirectly benefited as well as the producer, from the fact that such a policy would prevent a glut in the market of such perishable articles and the consequent discouragement on the part of the producer, sometimes ending in a resolution to grow no more fruit for market, owing to the loss entailed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Economic goods may, therefore have a greater or smaller utility depending upon the place, the time, and the consumer. Bear in mind, moreover, that each consumer matches the utility of one commodity with the utility of other commodities which he finds available, and his demand follows the direction 41of the greater utility. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When they organize they must do it fairly to all. They must have sympathy extending beyond the mere scale of their produce to the consumer. They can live well themselves and help others to live well by giving them their best at a fair rate. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ This view of the subject should keep persons from complaining that so many needless and extravagant things are made and sold. It is true that many are thus tempted to buy more than is wise or right, yet on the whole, great good results to the community. ”