Word: discounters
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...consists of paper bills rather than coins. In the U.S., where local currencies were popular during the Depression, the biggest alterna-cash system is in Massachusetts' Berkshire County. Go to one of several banks there, hand a teller $95 and get back $100 worth of BerkShares, a nice little discount designed to reel in users. BerkShares are printed on special paper (by a local business, naturally--a subsidiary of Crane Paper Co., which has been printing U.S. greenbacks since 1879). And since the program's inception in 2006, more than $2.5 million in BerkShares have circulated through bakeries, vets' offices...
Local currency can generate customer loyalty, but not every business feels as though it can offer a discount like the one built into BerkShares. "They just aren't viable for us," says Beth Parsons, whose family owns a grocery store in Lenox, Mass. But as a consumer, she likes the idea. Parsons recently drove to a nearby town to buy some shoes instead of getting them online. Afterward, she says, she passed a BerkShares sign "at the bank and thought, 'Oh, I should've bought BerkShare bucks to save money on these...
Nearly a quarter of the homes listed for sale in the U.S. have had at least one price reduction, with an average discount of 10% off the original asking price, according to an analysis by the listings site Trulia.com. The analysis shows that of the nation's 50 largest cities, Jacksonville, Fla., is the most marked-down market, with 39% of houses there having undergone a price chop...
...recession continues to bite, sex workers from Bangkok to Berlin share Goy's frustration. "People just don't spend that freely anymore," says Anke Christiansen, co-founder of Hamburg's Geizhaus ("Das Original Discount Bordell") where visitor numbers have dropped by as much as 20% since the crisis began. "Customers who used to come to us three times a week now limit themselves to once a week." That newfound restraint has already forced some brothels to shut their doors. In the Czech Republic, where 14% of men admit to having slept with a prostitute, up to half...
...talk in the book about a drug study in which they administered painkillers, and when they told patients the drugs had been bought at discount, they were actually less effective. That's kind of terrifying. The response to a discount is profound in the human brain. What is less profound is the response to actually owning that object once you get the discount. We strive to get that deal, but we tend to devalue the object after we purchase it. For many things, the biggest charge we get is that transaction itself. Retailers and marketers strive to make us think...