what price luxury? (John Lewis)

Member Name: rugbyjoc

Product:	John Lewis
Date:	15/08/01 (190 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: undoubtedly cheap

Disadvantages: at what price?

Have you ever come to question the price of something you have sen offered for sale in a shop or a store? I have. The usual thing is to question onesself as to what mark-up of profit there is on the item and where one can get it a little cheaper, is it not? The self-questioning and the doubt take on quite another and an altogether more troubling dimension when you know that what you are looking at is cheap - very cheap - and you know - you are certain - that the store is, the cheapness notiwthstanding, making a very healthy profit margin. Where's the problem?, I can hearasome of you saying. It's here: How is it possible for a major chain store such as John Lewis - and no doubt others like it - to import quality hand-made Bukhara rugs from Pakistan and sell them at non-discounted prices from less than £150? Who is losing out, here? Not the retailer, I am reasonably certain of that. Can it, perhaps, be the trader in Pakistan? I doubt it, very much. Who then. Who is left who can 'lose'? I think the only people who can possibly remain in the commercial chain that brings the rugs to the store - and then to our drawing rooms and sitting rooms - are those who do the physical work. Who, then, are these skilled workers who produce these beautiful rugs that will grace our flats, town houses and places in the suburbs and the country, all for such a small price? Who are they, what are they paid, what are the conditions in which they work? These are a few questions that I feel it would be a good thing for us to ask people like John Lewis and the restof them when we buy the lovely rugs and carpets they offer us which, in truth, we (myself included) are very happy to own and to 'show off'. Is the very low price that WE pay TOO LOW? I have not the vaguest idea of wage rates in Pakistan or India, so I cannot speak about them. What I can do - and what I Do do is this: I have started for the first time in my life to question what I have an
d what I pay for what I want. I try to compare that to what others receive in order to buy not what they WANT so much as what they NEED. I am beginning to find that I have many more 'wants' than I have real 'needs' -(for honesty's sake let me here and now say that I have no real and sincere intention of ceasing to want what I want) - and I am becoming more acutely aware that there are an awful lot of people 'out there' who cater to my 'wants' and who, it seems, don't get paid much for doing so. John Lewis 'never knowingly undersold' - perhaps...but at what price? Will anyone ever really tell us?

Summary: