Mr. Selfridge

March 28, 2013 PBS Wisconsin Leave a Comment

Watch Masterpiece Classic “Mr. Selfridge” at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 31 on Wisconsin Public Television.

Not too sure how I feel about watching a show centered on the creation of a department store. I think maybe I’ve spent far too many years of my life working in retail to ever think a department store is a good thing. Sure they’re big and flashy and at a time were an actual experience to partake in, but so was going to the movies.

Nowadays I’m pretty content with just avoiding the crowds, lines, noise and fluorescent lighting that makes everything sparkle. It’s just too easy to sit at home in your pajamas and order things online – it saves time, money and keeps your blood pressure low enough to keep you from yelling at a total stranger for folding a shirt wrong. That’s a win-win.

It’s actually quite amazing to see some of the research they do to get people to shop and spend more money in stores. It’s not just trends and having products on display to lure you in, it’s psychological and stores all over have ways of tricking us into more. Special lights to stimulate our system and make products sparkle more than they normally would, absence of clocks so you lose track of how much time you’re spending at the store… the list goes on and on. Restaurants have even figured out what types and volumes of music will cause us to eat more and eat faster – and that’s when things start to get a little scary.

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