Monday, August 17, 2009

Pretty Doesn't Always Work, For Stores

The world is going crazy. Some time and tested practices no longer work. There's good and bad about it.

Remember how good looks were put to damn good use? You'd put pretty people in advertisements, on can covers, on front pages, on magazine covers and on all sorts of products.

You'd put pretty receptionists on your front desk, pretty waitresses in your restaurants and bars and, of course, pretty people to show off your clothes.

Man, if you had looks, you'd have won 80 per cent of your battle.

These days, though, pretty may not be so good. According to a survey in Australia, pretty store assistants are putting off customers and are causing sales to dwindle.

Here's why:

Research from the University of South Australia has found that regardless of the product, women are less likely to buy it if they think the saleswoman is more attractive than them.

After being intimidated while shopping, PhD researcher Bianca Price decided to investigate and her findings were recently published in the Journal of International Business and Economics.

"Attractiveness does have its benefits, hence stores hire these girls, but the problems lie with the fact that we aren't all stunners," she told ABC News Online.

You may read the rest of the article HERE.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Ooh, That R Word!

Something's really goin' on back home. The Chinese are calling the Malays racist and the Malays are calling everyone else that R word.

So, I do a little reading and what have I discovered. That they all have reason to believe that the other is a racist.

Bigotry. Bah!

You can blame it on race politics. What what do you blame race politics on?

You got it, baby. Politicians, who else.

The Democratic Action Party (DAP) is predominantly Chinese so they get all fired up when the Malay daily, Utusan Malaysia accuses it politicians of being anti-Malay and anti-Islam.

The DAP in turn throws back the R word at the Utusan.

Everyone -- and I mean politicians and their supporters -- jumps in and have a good fucking time labelling the Chinese anti-Malay and the Malays as racist.

It is helluva ugly. It's supposed to be helluva. But, really, it's more hilarious than anything because you can see everyone's game.

They're killing each other, I tell ya.

So funny.

Get over it, man.