Response to Parker Haye's Post

How awesome are .99 Cent Arizona Iced teas? 

Arizona Ice Teas are the true north in the American economy. With the recession in the United States a lot of our beliefs in George Washington greenback have been shaken, nay rocked to their very foundation. We thought gas would never go above 3 dollars...we were wrong. We believed our dollar menu was unchangeable...yet here we stand, dollar burgers with no cheese, the wendy's junior bacon a buck 1.19, and proably worst of all 4 piece chicken nuggets 1.25 (you know we've hit a low when the most processed meal, possibly possessing 0% chicken, is more than a dollar. And yet, fear not Mr. Washington for there is hope . There is one thing that refuses to yield, one thing that will always be 99 cents--Arizona Iced Tea.

T-Mobile Deceptive Ads

T-Mobile announced last month a new type of wireless plan with no restrictions, no annual contracts and no asterisks attached. It now appears that this may not be entirely true. As the new plan stands customers must pay full price for their own phone, but could pay for it over time with a payment plan. The catch is that those who decide to go for the 24 month payment plan need to sign a wireless service agreement for the entire 24 months of pay the balance owed on the phone if the service is cancelled before the phone is paid off. Because of this T-Mobile has had to agree in court to end the advertising and refund customers who paid for phone equipment under this plan.

Companies that deceive customers risk getting found out which means they may have to pay back their customers, lose customers, and damage their public image. Why then do companies risk it? 

http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/04/25/17916413-t-mobile-ads-were-deceptive-washington-attorney-general?lite

Response To Greg Matthews post

So the question i'd like to bring up is why our generation so likely to not oppose or fight against music piracy? 

Our generation is not going to oppose or fight against music piracy because we all do it. Music Piracy is considered a normal way to get music and it's become so universally accepted by everyone as a way to get music that there's really nothing that can be done to stop it. It is gong to be up to the music industry to find another way to make money off of music because as time goes on less and less people are going to be paying for music.

Fortune 500 Hewlett-Packard Goes to the Dance Floor

Hewlett-Packard has decided to take a radical approach and invest in new toward coming up with new ideas for their computers.This approach is hiring dancers to motivate and get employees to think outside the box for new innovations. Dancers design dancers based around whatever the project is, enact the dance, and then answer any questions the employees have. Other companies are also implementing this tactic, with some of them giving the dancers an expanded role by having them give motivational speeches and helping improve customer interactions.

Do you think that this will help improve creativity and innovation for workers? Is there a better way to inspire and motivate employees to come up with new ideas?








http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/23/technology/innovation/trey-mcintyre-project-hewlett-packard/index.html?iid=HP_River

Response to Kerri Hinkle's Post

Do you think these new groups are an invasion of privacy or beneficial to Facebook users?
Why or why not?

I believe that it is not an invasion of privacy because anything you put on the internet is basically out there for the world to see. Facebook is, for the most part, a public social media site. It will be beneficial for companies to better understand their customers and be beneficial to the customer, however, it may also be negative in that it may lead to the customer to feel pestered or molested by the company that is trying to market their product to them. Overall though, it is up to the Facebook user to decide what they would like everyone to know about them and as soon as they post, like, or join a group they are telling everyone what they think about it. As long as all the company is doing is reading or analyzing what the user posted then they are not invading their privacy. 

The Fashion Industry

In an article by WellHeeled, an investigation into the markups and discounts of clothing are explored. The initial question is how is it possible for a company to make a profit if they are selling below the MSRP (manufacturer suggested retail price). What they discovered is that  the price gets marked up several times by the time it gets to the retailer from the manufacturer. That means that an item sold at a store may only cost them an eighth of the MSRP price to make. That is why a product that that starts out at an expensive designer, such as Ralph Lauren, at high price can eventually be found later at a discount store or wholesaler for half the price and that store is still capable of making a profit. It is interesting to note that the article does not answer it's own question and only gives a vague hypothesis.


Do you believe that the initial price of clothing is established with the belief that the clothing will not be sold at that price so that the store may offer discounts to make the customer believe they are getting a better value? Do you believe, as a customer, that you would be getting as good a value or as good a quality product if they started at the lowest discount price?



http://www.wellheeledblog.com/2009/08/22/profit-margins-in-fashion-industry-banana-republic/

Response to Will Redding's Best Buy Question

Do you think this is a good market strategy for Best Buy? Do you think this policy will help with Best Buy's poor stock performance? 

I believe that it is a good strategy to decrease the loss of sales of their physical store locations. The question will be in the effective implementation and marketing of this new policy. I had no idea that they had changed their policy to that and it appears that as of now they have not openly marketed this policy. The major area of concern will be where do they cut off matching the price of online competitors (some of them sell at wholesaler or manufacturer pricing) and Best Buy will not be able to stay profitable if they match those extremely low discounted  prices.