1.
Consumers (food chain)
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Consumers are typically viewed as predatory animals such as the wolf and hyena. However, herbivorous animals and parasitic fungi are also consumers, some carnivorous plants, like the Venus flytrap, are classified as both. Within an ecological food chain, consumers are categorized into three groups, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and the tertiary consumers, primary consumers are usually herbivores, feeding on plants and fungus. Secondary consumers, on the hand, are mainly carnivores. Omnivores, who feed on plants and animals, can also be considered a secondary consumer. Tertiary consumers, sometimes known as apex predators, are usually at the top of food chains, capable of feeding on secondary consumers. Tertiary consumers can be either fully carnivorous or omnivorous, humans are one such example of a tertiary consumer. Consumers dominate most parts of an ecosystem, consumers have important roles to play within an ecosystem such as balancing the food chain by keeping animal populations at a reasonable number. Without proper balance, an ecosystem can collapse and cause the decline of all affected species and this will lead to a severely disrupted ecosystem and a nonfunctional consumer web
2.
Nanjing
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Nanjing has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having served as the capitals of various Chinese dynasties, kingdoms and republican governments dating from the 3rd century CE to 1949. When being the capital of a state, for instance, the ROC, Nanjing is particularly known as Jinling or Ginling and the old name has been used since the Warring States period in Zhou Dynasty. Located in Yangtze River Delta area and the center of east China and it has also been awarded the title of 2008 Habitat Scroll of Honour of China, Special UN Habitat Scroll of Honour Award and National Civilized City. Nanjing boasts many high-quality universities and research institutes, with the number of universities listed in 100 National Key Universities ranking third, the ratio of college students to total population ranks No.1 among large cities nationwide. Nanjing is one of the three Chinese top research centers according to Nature Index, Key cultural facilities include Nanjing Library, Nanjing Museum and Art Museum. Archaeological discovery shows that Nanjing Man lived in more than 500 thousand years ago, zun, a kind of wine vessel, was found to exist in Beiyinyangying culture of Nanjing in about 5000 years ago. According to a legend quoted by an artist in Ming dynasty, Chen Yi, Fuchai, King of the State of Wu, later in 473 BCE, the State of Yue conquered Wu and constructed the fort of Yuecheng on the outskirts of the present-day Zhonghua Gate. In 333 BCE, after eliminating the State of Yue, the State of Chu built Jinling Yi in the part of present-day Nanjing. It was renamed Moling during reign of Qin Shi Huang, since then, the city experienced destruction and renewal many times. Nanjing was later the city of Danyang Prefecture, and had been the capital city of Yangzhou for about 400 years from late Han to early Tang. This city would soon play a role in the following centuries. Shortly after the unification of the region, the Western Jin dynasty collapsed, First the rebellions by eight Jin princes for the throne and later rebellions and invasion from Xiongnu and other nomadic peoples that destroyed the rule of the Jin dynasty in the north. Its the first time that the capital of the moved to southern part. During the period of North–South division, Nanjing remained the capital of the Southern dynasties for more than two and a half centuries, during this time, Nanjing was the international hub of East Asia. Based on historical documents, the city had 280,000 registered households, assuming an average Nanjing household had about 5.1 people at that time, the city had more than 1.4 million residents. As the old capital of China, many legendary stories happened here, residents in Nanjing all have the warmest affection for this city. Throughout glory and darkness in past centuries, Nanjing becomes a low-key city, GDP growth rate significantly exceeds the average rate in China for decades, which also maintain a fast developing model. Possibly the best preserved of them is the ensemble of the Tomb of Xiao Xiu, the period of division ended when the Sui Dynasty reunified China and almost destroyed the entire city, turning it into a small town
3.
Service (economics)
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In economics, a service is a transaction in which no physical goods is transferred from the seller to the buyer. The benefits of such a service are held to be demonstrated by the willingness to make the exchange. Public services are those that society as a whole pays for, using resources, skill, ingenuity, and experience, service providers benefit service consumers. Services can be described in terms of their key characteristics, sometimes called the Five Is of Services and they are not manufactured, transported or stocked. Services cannot be stored for a future use and they are produced and consumed simultaneously. Services are perishable in two regards, Service-relevant resources, processes and systems are assigned for delivery during a specific period in time. If the service consumer does not request and consume the service during this period, from the perspective of the service provider, this is a lost business opportunity if no other use for those resources is available. Examples, A hairdresser serves another client, an empty seat on an airplane cannot be filled after departure. When the service has been rendered to the consumer, this particular service irreversibly vanishes. Example, a passenger has been transported to the destination and the flight is over, the service provider must deliver the service at the time of service consumption. The service is not manifested in an object that is independent of the provider. The service consumer is also inseparable from service delivery, examples, The service consumer must sit in the hairdressers chair, or in the airplane seat. Correspondingly, the hairdresser or the pilot must be in the shop or plane, respectively, many services are regarded as heterogeneous and are typically modified for each service consumer or each service context. Another and more common term for this is heterogeneity, both service provider and service consumer participate in the service provision. Mass generation and delivery of services must be mastered for a provider to expand. This can be seen as a problem of service quality, both inputs and outputs to the processes involved providing services are highly variable, as are the relationships between these processes, making it difficult to maintain consistent service quality. Many services involve variable human activity, rather than a precisely determined process, the human factor is often the key success factor in service provision. Demand can vary by season, time of day, business cycle, consistency is necessary to create enduring business relationships
4.
Commodity
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In economics, a commodity is a marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services, the word commodity came into use in English in the 15th century, from the French commodité, amenity, convenience. Going further back, the French word derives from the Latin commoditas, meaning suitability, convenience, the Latin word commodus meant variously appropriate, proper measure, time, or condition, and advantage, benefit. The term commodity is specifically used for a good or service when the demand for it has no qualitative differentiation across a market. In other words, a commodity good or service has full or partial but substantial fungibility, that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. As the saying goes, From the taste of wheat, it is not possible to tell who produced it, a Russian serf, petroleum and copper are other examples of such commodities, their supply and demand being a part of one universal market. Items such as systems, on the other hand, have many aspects of product differentiation, such as the brand, the user interface. The demand for one type of stereo may be larger than demand for another. In contrast, one of the characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole, well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Generally, these are basic resources and agricultural products such as ore, sugar. Soft commodities are goods that are grown, while hard commodities are ones that are extracted through mining, there is another important class of energy commodities which includes electricity, gas, coal and oil. Electricity has the characteristic that it is usually uneconomical to store, hence. Commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, as such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and DRAM chips. Following this trend, nanomaterials are emerging from carrying premium profit margins for market participants to a status of commodification, there is a spectrum of commoditization, rather than a binary distinction of commodity versus differentiable product. Many products degree of commoditization depends on the mentality and means. For example, milk, eggs, and notebook paper are not differentiated by many customers, for them, other customers take into consideration other factors besides price, such as environmental sustainability and animal welfare. This is a list of companies trading globally in commodities, descending by size as of October 28,2011, on a commodity exchange, it is the underlying standard stated in the contract that defines the commodity, not any quality inherent in a specific producers product. Commodities exchanges include, Bourse Africa Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Chicago Board of Trade Chicago Mercantile Exchange Dalian Commodity Exchange Euronext and these markets will quickly respond to changes in supply and demand to find an equilibrium price and quantity
5.
Goods and services
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Physiocratic economists categorized production into productive labour and unproductive labour. This emphasis on production was adapted by David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus and John Stuart Mill. Other, mainly Italian, 18th century economists maintained that all desired goods, the division of consumables into services is a simplification, these are not discrete categories. Most business theorists see a continuum with pure service at one endpoint, most products fall between these two extremes. For example, a restaurant provides a good, but also provides services in the form of ambience. Although some utilities, such as electricity and communications service providers, exclusively provide services, other utilities deliver physical goods, for public sector contracting purposes in the European Union, electricity supply is actually defined as goods rather than services. Goods are normally structural and can be transferred in an instant while services are delivered over a period of time, goods can be returned while a service once delivered cannot. Goods are not always tangible and may be virtual e. g. a book may be paper or electronic, marketing theory makes use of the service-goods continuum as an important concept which enables marketers to see the relative goods/services composition of total products. In a narrower sense, service refers to quality of customer service and this particular usage occurs frequently in retailing. Distinctions are made between goods and services in the context of international trade liberalization, for example, the World Trade Organizations General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade covers international trade in goods and the General Aglreement on Trade in Services covers the services sector
6.
Economic system
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An economic system is a system of production, resource allocation, and distribution of goods and services within a society or a given geographic area. It includes the combination of the institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making processes. As such, a system is a type of social system. The mode of production is a related concept, all economic systems have three basic questions to ask, what to produce, how to produce and in what quantities, and who receives the output of production. The study of systems includes how these various agencies and institutions are linked to one another. The analysis of economic systems traditionally focused on the dichotomies and comparisons between market economies and planned economies, and on the distinctions between capitalism and socialism, subsequently, the categorization of economic systems expanded to include other topics and models that do not conform to the traditional dichotomy. Today the dominant form of organization at the world level is based on market-oriented mixed economies. Economic systems is the category in the Journal of Economic Literature classification codes that includes the study of such systems, there are multiple components to economic systems. Decision-making structures of an economy determine the use of inputs, distribution of output, the level of centralization in decision-making. Decisions might be carried out by industrial councils, by a government agency, in one view, every economic system represents an attempt to solve three fundamental and interdependent problems, What goods and services shall be produced, and in what quantities. How shall goods and services be produced and that is, by whom and with what resources and technologies. For whom shall goods and services be produced and that is, who is to enjoy the benefits of the goods and services and how is the total product to be distributed among individuals and groups in the society. Thus every economy is a system that allocates resources for exchange, the system is stabilized through a combination of threat and trust, which are the outcome of institutional arrangements. The means of production may be owned privately, by the state, a decision-making system, this determines who is eligible to make decisions over economic activities. Economic agents with decision-making powers can enter into binding contracts with one another, a coordination mechanism, this determines how information is obtained and used in decision-making. An incentive system, this induces and motivates economic agents to engage in productive activities and it can be based on either material reward or moral suasion. The incentive system may encourage specialization and the division of labour, organizational form, there are two basic forms of organization, actors and regulators. Economic actors include households, work gangs and production teams, firms, joint-ventures, economically regulative organizations are represented by the state and market authorities, the latter may be private or public entities
7.
Production (economics)
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Production theory is the study of production, or the economic process of converting inputs into outputs. Production uses resources to create a good or service that is suitable for use, gift-giving in a gift economy and this can include manufacturing, construction, storing, shipping, and packaging. Some economists define production broadly as all economic activity other than consumption and they see every commercial activity other than the final purchase as some form of production. Production is a process, and as such it occurs through time, because it is a flow concept, production is measured as a “rate of output per period of time”. Production is a process that combines various material inputs and immaterial inputs to make something for consumption and it is the act of creating output, a good or service that has value and contributes to the utility of individuals. Economic well-being is created in a process, meaning all economic activities that aim directly or indirectly to satisfy human needs. The degree to which the needs are satisfied is often accepted as a measure of economic well-being, in production, two features explain increasing economic well-being. They are improving quality-price-ratio of commodities and increasing incomes from growing, all of them produce commodities that have value and contribute to well-being of individuals. The satisfaction of needs originates from the use of the commodities produced, the need satisfaction increases when the quality-price-ratio of the commodities improves and more satisfaction is achieved at less cost. To the procucer, improving product competitiveness often means lower product prices, and therefore losses in incomes, Economic well-being also increases due to the growth of incomes that are gained from the growing and more efficient market production. Market production is the one production form that creates and distributes incomes to stakeholders. Public production and household production are financed by the incomes generated in market production, thus market production has a double role in creating well-being, i. e. the role of producing developing commodities and the role to creating income. Because of this double role market production is the “primus motor” of economic well-being, in principle there are two main activities in an economy, production and consumption. Similarly there are two kinds of actors, producers and consumers, well-being is made possible by efficient production and by the interaction between producers and consumers. In the interaction, consumers can be identified in two roles both of which generate well-being, consumers can be both customers of the producers and suppliers to the producers. Stakeholders of production are persons, groups or organizations with an interest in a producing company, Economic well-being originates in efficient production and it is distributed through the interaction between the company’s stakeholders. Stakeholders of companies are economic actors with an economic interest in a company, based on the similarities of their interests, stakeholders can be classified into three groups to differentiate their interests and mutual relations. The three groups are, Customers Suppliers Producers The interests of stakeholders and their relations to companies are described briefly below
8.
Sales
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A sale is the exchange of a commodity or money as the price of a good or a service. Sales is activity related to selling or the amount of goods or services sold in a time period. The seller or the provider of the goods or services completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition or an interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title of the item, and the settlement of a price, the seller, not the purchaser generally executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law, a person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the coin or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values, the exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts, from a management viewpoint it is thought of as a part of marketing, although the skills required are different. Sales often forms a separate grouping in a structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons. Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading art, selling is the profession-wide term, much like marketing defines a profession. Recently, attempts have been made to understand who is in the sales profession. There are many articles looking at marketing, advertising, promotions, two common terms used to describe a salesperson are Farmer and Hunter. The reality is that most professional sales people have a little of both, a hunter is often associated with aggressive personalities who use aggressive sales technique. In terms of sales methodology a hunter refers to a person whose focus is on bringing in and this process is called sales capturing. An example is a commodity such as a long distance sales person, shoe sales person. Their job is to find and convert buyers, a sales farmer is someone who creates sales demand by activities that directly influence and alter the buying process. Many believe that the focus of selling is on the agents involved in the exchange between buyer and seller
9.
Marketing
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Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. Marketing is used to create the customer, to keep the customer, with the customer as the focus of its activities, it can be concluded that Marketing is one of the premier components of Business Management - the other being Innovation. Other services and management activities such as Operations, Human Resources, Accounting, Law, the term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to a market to buy or sell goods or services. The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably, a similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. Marketing practice tended to be seen as an industry in the past. The overall process starts with marketing research and goes through market segmentation, business planning and execution, ending with pre and it is also related to many of the creative arts. The marketing literature is also adept at re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times, the term marketing concept pertains to the fundamental premise of modern marketing. This concept proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, Marketing and marketing concepts are directly related. An orientation, in the context, relates to a perception or attitude a firm holds towards its product or service. There exist several common orientations, A firm employing a product orientation is chiefly concerned with the quality of its own product, a firm would also assume that as long as its product was of a high standard, people would buy and consume the product. A firm using a sales orientation focuses primarily on the selling/promotion of a particular product, consequently, this entails simply selling an already existing product, and using promotion techniques to attain the highest sales possible. Such an orientation may suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, a firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service. Thus, this signifies a firm exploiting economies of scale, until the minimum efficient scale is reached, a production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with a good certainty that consumer tastes do not rapidly alter. The marketing orientation is perhaps the most common used in contemporary marketing. It involves a firm essentially basing its marketing plans around the marketing concept, the marketing orientation often has three prime facets, which are, A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that persons are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firms future viability, in this sense, a firms marketing department is often seen as of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from a marketing department would be used to guide the actions of other departments within the firm. As an example, a department could ascertain that consumers desired a new type of product
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Internet
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The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. Although the Internet was widely used by academia since the 1980s, Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s and from the late 1990s in the developing world. In the two decades since then, Internet use has grown 100-times, measured for the period of one year, newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The entertainment industry was initially the fastest growing segment on the Internet, the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries, the Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage, each constituent network sets its own policies. The term Internet, when used to refer to the global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, is a proper noun. In common use and the media, it is not capitalized. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, the Internet is also often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. Historically, as early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, however, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks, the term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user. The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics Department. In an early sign of growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks, early international collaborations on the ARPANET were rare. European developers were concerned with developing the X.25 networks, in December 1974, RFC675, by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used the term internet as a shorthand for internetworking and later RFCs repeated this use. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation funded the Computer Science Network, in 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite was standardized, which permitted worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990
11.
Crowdfunding
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Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and of alternative finance, in 2015, it was estimated that worldwide over US$34 billion was raised this way. Although the concept can also be executed through mail-order subscriptions, benefit events, Crowdfunding has a long history with several roots. Books have been crowdfunded for centuries, Authors and publishers would advertise book projects in praenumeration or subscription schemes, the book would be written and published if enough subscribers signaled their readiness to buy the book once it was out. The subscription business model is not exactly crowdfunding, since the flow of money only begins with the arrival of the product. The list of subscribers has, though, the power to create the necessary confidence among investors that is needed to risk the publication, war bonds are theoretically a form of crowdfunding military conflicts. A clearer case of modern crowdfunding is Auguste Comtes scheme to issue notes for the support of his further work as a philosopher. The Premiere Circulaire Annuelle adressée par l’auteur du Systeme de Philosophie Positive was published on 14 March 1850, the cooperative movement of the 19th and 20th centuries is a broader precursor. In 1885, when government sources failed to provide funding to build a base for the Statue of Liberty. Crowdfunding on the internet first gained popular and mainstream use in the arts and they subsequently used this method to fund their studio albums. In the film industry, independent writer/director Mark Tapio Kines designed a website in 1997 for his then-unfinished first feature film Foreign Correspondents. By early 1999, he had raised more than US$125,000 on the Internet from at least 25 fans, in 2002, the Free Blender campaign was an early software crowdfunding precursor. The campaign aimed for open-sourcing the Blender 3D computer graphics software by collecting $100,000 from the community while offering additional benefits for donating members, Crowdfunding gained traction after the launch of ArtistShare, in 2003. Following ArtistShare, more crowdfunding sites started to appear on the web such as IndieGoGo, Kickstarter, however, Sellaband, started in 2006 as a music-focused platform, initially controlled the crowdfunding market. This can be contributed to creators and funders, who perceive the platform to be more valuable with more members, later, Kickstarter gained popularity for its wide-ranging focus. However, Sellaband offered revenue sharing, a type of equity crowdfunding and it was later controlled by a German company and heightened security restrictions. The phenomenon of crowdfunding is older than the term crowdfunding, according to wordspy. com, the earliest recorded use of the word was in August 2006. Equity crowdfunding, the backer receives shares of a company, usually in its early stages, reward-based crowdfunding has been used for a wide range of purposes, including motion picture promotion, free software development, inventions development, scientific research, and civic projects
12.
Consumer protection
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The laws are designed to prevent the businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors. They may also provide protection for those most vulnerable in society. Consumer protection laws are a form of government regulation that aim to protect the rights of consumers, for example, a government may require businesses to disclose detailed information about products—particularly in areas where safety or public health is an issue, such as food. A consumer is defined as someone who acquires goods or services for use or ownership rather than for resale or use in production. Consumer protection can also be asserted via non-government organizations and individuals as consumer activism, Consumer protection law or consumer law is considered an area of law that regulates private law relationships between individual consumers and the businesses that sell those goods and services. Its a way of preventing fraud and scams from service and sales contracts, bill collector regulation, pricing, utility turnoffs, consolidation, the following lists consumer legislation at the nation-state level. In the EU member states Germany and the United Kingdom there is also the applicability of law at the EU level to be considered, in Australia, the corresponding agency is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or the individual State Consumer Affairs agencies. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has responsibility for consumer protection regulation of financial services, however, in practice it does so through privately run EDR schemes such as the Financial Ombudsman Service. Germany as a state of the European Union is bound by the consumer protection directives of the European Union. A minister of the cabinet is responsible for consumer rights. In the current cabinet of Angela Merkel, this is Heiko Maas.84,71 BVerwGE 183), in India The Consumer protection act,1986 is governing consumer protection. Appeal could be filed to the State Consumer Disputes Redress Commissions, in recent years, many effective judgment have been passed by some state and National Consumer Forums. The Sale of Goods Act of 1930 act provides some safeguards to buyers of goods if goods purchased do not fulfill the express or implied conditions, the Civil Code in Taiwan contains five books, General Principles, Obligations, Rights over Things, Family, and Succession. The second book of the Code, the Book of Obligations, the Consumer Protection Commission of Executive Yuan serves as an ombudsman supervising, coordinating, reporting any unsafe products/services and periodically reviewing the legislation. Specifics of the division of labour between the EU and the UK are detailed here, domestic laws originated within the ambit of contract and tort but, with the influence of EU law, it is emerging as an independent area of law. In many circumstances, where law is in question, the matter judicially treated as tort, contract. Consumer Protection issues are dealt with when complaints are made to the Director-General of Fair Trade, the Office of Fair Trading will then investigate, impose an injunction or take the matter to litigation. However, consumers cannot directly complain to the OFT, complaints need to be made to the Citizens Advice Consumer Service who will provide legal advice to complainants, or re-direct the individual complaint to Trading Standards for investigation
13.
Which?
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Which. is a brand name used by the Consumers Association, a registered charity and company limited by guarantee, which is based in the United Kingdom. The association owns several businesses, including Which, the vast majority of the associations income comes from the profit it makes on its trading businesses, for instance subscriptions to Which. Magazine, which are donated to the part of the organisation to fund advocacy activity. Magazine maintains its independence by not accepting advertising and the organisation receives no government funding, the Consumers Association is the largest consumer organisation in the UK, with over 573,000 subscribers to its magazine. Until 2006 the association used prize draws similar to Readers Digests to attract subscribers, the Association now attracts subscribers to its publications with free mini-guides and trial offers. Encouraged by the efforts of Dorothy and Ray Goodman in the United States, Young continued to push the idea, magazine was published from a converted garage in Bethnal Green. Its central aim was to improve the standard of goods and services available to the public in the UK, the publication started as a small 32-page magazine that included reports on electric kettles, sunglasses, aspirin, cake-mixes, scouring powders, no-iron cottons and British cars. By 1959, membership reached 150,000 and a membership services office in Hertford, helped to found the International Organisation of Consumer Unions, later Consumers International. In 1962, coverage expanded with the launch of the first quarterly Which. car supplement, in 1970, Which. bought a set of buildings in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, to set up labs to test products including domestic appliances, DIY equipment, and consumer electronics. Previously, the work had been contracted out, taking a greater campaigning role, and it began to adopt a more aggressive stance on issues such as lead poisoning and aircraft noise. Published the first league table on the tar and nicotine content of cigarettes, the organisation also dabbled in high street consumer advice centres during the 1970s. There were more than 120 such centres operating in 1977-8, with many of them funded by local councils, the centres closed as funding was withdrawn by the government in 1980. Launched another satellite publication, this one aimed at youngsters aged 11–15, the magazine failed to take off and closed in June 1994. In 1995 testing facilities were moved to Milton Keynes where they remained until 2002, online, the first incarnation of the Which. The trading organisation was rebranded as Which. in 2004 and this is the promoted to the general public. However the charity the Consumers Association continues to own Which, ltd and retains its own name. Following the deregulation of the gas and electricity industry, Which, launched a free online energy comparison service called Switch with Which. in 2005, to compare energy tariffs. The service was awarded Energywatch Confidence Code accreditation in 2006, in the 2010 Superbrands index, Which
14.
Consumer Reports
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Consumer Reports publishes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory and survey research center. The magazine accepts no advertising, pays for all the products it tests and it also publishes general and targeted product/service buying guides. As of April 2016 it had approximately 7 million subscribers and an annual testing budget of approximately US$25 million, Consumer Reports is well known for its policies on editorial independence, which it says are to maintain our independence and impartiality. CU has no other than the interests of consumers. CR has unusually strict requirements and sometimes has taken extraordinary steps, Consumer Reports does not allow outside advertising in the magazine but its website has retailers advertisements. Consumer Reports states that PriceGrabber places the ads and pays a percentage of fees to CR. Consumer Reports publishes reviews of its business partner and recommends it in at least one case, CR had a similar relationship with BizRate at one time and has had relationships with other companies including Amazon. com, Yahoo. The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, BillShrink, CR also accepts grants from other organizations, and at least one high-ranking Consumer Reports employee has gone on to work for a company he evaluated. CR also forbids the use of its reviews for selling products, for example, CR has gone to court to enforce that rule. However, in order to review some products before they are publicly available CR does accept press samples from manufacturers, for most of CRs history it minimized contact with government and industry experts to avoid compromising the independence of its judgment. In 2007, in response to errors in infant car seat testing, it began accepting advice from a range of experts on designing tests. Also, at times CR allows manufacturers to review and respond to criticism before publication, some objective and comparative tests published by Consumer Reports are carried out under the umbrella of the international consumer organization International Consumer Research & Testing. Consumer Reports also uses outside labs for testing, including for 11 percent of tests in 2006, consumerReports. org, the related website is largely available only to paid subscribers. ConsumerReports. org provides updates on product availability, and adds new products to previously-published test results, in 1990, Consumers Union launched Consumer Reports Television. By March 2005 it was hosted by over 100 stations, on August 1,2006 Consumers Union launched ShopSmart, a magazine aimed at young women. In 2008, Consumers Union acquired The Consumerist blog from Gawker Media, WebWatch worked with the Stanford Web Credibility Project, Harvard Universitys Berkman Center, The Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, and others. WebWatch is a member of ICANN, the W3C and the Internet Society, as of July 31,2009, WebWatch has been shut down, though the site is still available. Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs is available free on Consumer Reports Health. org, also in 2005 Consumers Union launched the service Greener Choices, which is meant to inform, engage, and empower consumers about environmentally-friendly products and practices
15.
Consumer Protection Act, 1986
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Consumer Protection Act,1986 is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted in 1986 to protect the interests of consumers in India. It makes provision for the establishment of consumer councils and other authorities for the settlement of consumers disputes and it led to the establishment of a widespread network of consumer forums and appellate courts all over India. It has significantly impacted how businesses approach consumer complaints and empowered consumers to a great extent, Consumer Protection Councils are established at the national, state and district level to increase consumer awareness. The State Government may establish more than one District Forum in a district and it is a district level court that deals with cases valuing up to ₹2 million. State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Also known as the State Commission established by the State Government in the State and it is a state level court that takes up cases valuing less than ₹10 million National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Established by the Central Government. Consumer courts do not have jusridiction over matters where services or goods were bought for a commercial purpose
16.
Consumer debt
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In economics, consumer debt is outstanding consumer debt, as opposed to that of businesses or governments. In macroeconomic terms, it is debt which is used to fund consumption rather than investment and it includes debts incurred on purchase of goods that are consumable and/or do not appreciate. Both domestic and international economists have supported a recent upsurge in South Korean consumer debt, on the other hand, credit card debt is almost unknown just across the sea in Japan and China, because of long-standing cultural taboos against personal debt. Theoretical underpinnings aside, personal debt is on the rise, particularly in the United States, however, according to the US Federal Reserve, the US household debt service ratio is at the lowest level since its peak in the Fall of 2007. The most common forms of debt are credit card debt, payday loans, and other consumer finance. The amount of debt outstanding versus the consumers disposable income is expressed as the consumer leverage ratio, on a monthly basis, this debt ratio is advised to be no more than 20 percent of an individuals take-home pay. Rates generally range from 0.25 percent above base-rate, to well into double figures, consumer debt is also associated with Predatory lending, although there is much debate as to what exactly constitutes predatory lending. Long-term consumer debt is often considered fiscally suboptimal, while some consumer items may be useful investments that justify debt, most consumer goods are not. On the other hand, personal finance advisers like Robert Kiyosaki encourage a liberal attitude towards taking on debt if it can be leveraged into a small business or real estate. In many countries, the ease with which individuals can accumulate consumer debt beyond their means to repay has precipitated an industry in debt consolidation
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Consumer electronics
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Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic or digital equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications, and home-office activities, in British English, they are often called brown goods by producers and sellers, to distinguish them from white goods such as washing machines and refrigerators. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, later products included telephones, personal computers, MP3 players, audio equipment, televisions and calculators. In the 2010s, consumer electronics stores often sell GPS, automotive electronics, video game consoles, electronic instruments, karaoke machines, digital cameras. Stores also sell digital cameras, camcorders, cell phones, some consumer electronics stores, such as Best Buy have also begun selling office and baby furniture. Consumer electronics stores may be bricks and mortar retail stores, online stores. The CEA estimated the value of 2015 consumer electronics sales at US$220 billion, for its first fifty years the phonograph turntable did not use electronics, the needle and soundhorn were purely mechanical technologies. However, in the 1920s radio broadcasting became the basis of production of radio receivers. The vacuum tubes that had made radios practical were used with record players as well, television was soon invented, but remained insignificant in the consumer market until the 1950s. The transistor, invented in 1947 by Bell Laboratories, led to significant research in the field of semiconductors in the early 1950s. The transistors advantages revolutionized that industry along with other electronics, by 1959 Fairchild Semiconductor had introduced the first planar transistor from which come the origins of Moores Law. Integrated circuits followed when manufacturers built circuits on a substrate using electrical connections between circuits within the chip itself. One overriding characteristic of consumer products is the trend of ever-falling prices. This is driven by gains in manufacturing efficiency and automation, lower costs as manufacturing has moved to lower-wage countries. Semiconductor components benefit from Moores Law, a principle which states that, for a given price. While consumer electronics continues in its trend of convergence, combining elements of many products, there is an ever increasing need to keep product information updated and comparable, for the consumer to make an informed choice. Style, price, specification, and performance are all relevant, there is a gradual shift towards e-commerce web-storefronts. Many products include Internet connectivity using technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, products not traditionally associated with computer use now provide options to connect to the Internet or to a computer using a home network to provide access to digital content
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Consumer choice
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The theory of consumer choice is the branch of microeconomics that relates preferences to consumption expenditures and to consumer demand curves. Consumption is separated from production, logically, because two different economic agents are involved, in the first case consumption is by the primary individual, in the second case, a producer might make something that he would not consume himself. Therefore, different motivations and abilities are involved, the models that make up consumer theory are used to represent prospectively observable demand patterns for an individual buyer on the hypothesis of constrained optimization. Prominent variables used to explain the rate at which the good is purchased are the price per unit of good, prices of related goods. As the price of a good rises, consumers will substitute away from that good, in addition, as the wealth of the individual rises, demand for most products increases, shifting the demand curve higher at all possible prices. The basic problem of consumer theory takes the following inputs, The consumption set C – the set of all bundles that the consumer could conceivably consume, a preference relation over the bundles of C. This preference relation can be described as a utility function. A price system, which is a function assigning a price to each bundle, an initial endowment, which is a bundle from C that the consumer initially holds. The consumer can sell all or some of his initial bundle in the given prices and he has to decide which bundle to buy, under the given prices and budget, in order to maximize his utility. Consider an economy with two types of homogeneous divisible goods, traditionally called X and Y, the consumption set is R +2, i. e. the set of all pairs where x ≥0 and y ≥0. Each bundle contains a quantity of good X and a non-negative quantity of good Y. A typical preference relation in this universe can be represented by a set of indifference curves, each curve represents a set of bundles that give the consumer the same utility. A typical utility function is the Cobb-Douglas function, u = x α ⋅ y β, a typical price system assigns a price to each type of good, such that the cost of bundle is x p X + y p Y. A typical initial endowment is just a fixed income, which along with the prices implies a budget constraint, the consumer can choose any point on or below the budget constraint line BC In the diagram. This line is downward sloped and linear since it represents the boundary of the inequality x p X + y p Y ≤ i n c o m e. In other words, the amount spent on both goods together is less than or equal to the income of the consumer, the consumer will choose the indifference curve with the highest utility that is attainable within his budget constraint. Every point on indifference curve I3 is outside his budget constraint so the best that he can do is the point on I2 where the latter is tangent to his budget constraint. He will purchase X* of good X and Y* of good Y, indifference curve analysis begins with the utility function
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Consumerism
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Consumerism is a social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. In economics, consumerism may refer to policies which emphasise consumption. In this sense, consumerism expresses the idea not of one man, one voice, but of one dollar, one voice, the term consumerism has several definitions. These definitions may not be related to other and confusingly. One sense of the term relates to efforts to support consumers interests, by the early 1970s it had become the accepted term for the field and began to be used in these ways, Consumerism is the concept that consumers should be informed decision makers in the marketplace. Practices such as product testing make consumers informed, Consumerism is the concept that the marketplace itself is responsible for ensuring social justice through fair economic practices. Consumer protection policies and laws compel manufacturers to make products safe, Consumerism refers to the field of studying, regulating, or interacting with the marketplace. The consumer movement is the movement which refers to all actions. While the above definitions were becoming established, other people using the term consumerism to mean high levels of consumption. This definition has gained popularity since the 1970s and began to be used in ways, Consumerism is the selfish and frivolous collecting of products. In protest against this, some people promote anti-consumerism and advocate simple living, Consumerism is a force from the marketplace which destroys individuality and harms society. It is related to globalization and in protest against this some people promote the anti-globalization movement, vance Packard worked to change the meaning of the term consumerism from a positive word about consumer practices to a negative word meaning excessive materialism and waste. The ads for his 1960 book The Waste Makers prominently featured the word consumerism in a negative way, the consumer society emerged in the late seventeenth century and intensified throughout the eighteenth century. This included sugar, tobacco, tea and coffee, these were grown on vast plantations in the Caribbean as demand steadily rose. In particular, sugar consumption in Britain during the course of the 18th century increased by a factor of 20, critics argue that colonialism was indeed a driver of consumerism, but they would place the emphasis on the supply rather than the demand as the motivating factor. An increasing mass of exotic imports as well as domestic manufactures had to be consumed by the number of people who had been consuming far less than was becoming necessary. That idea was produced later, more or less strategically in order to intensify consumption domestically, marketplaces expanded as shopping centres, such as the New Exchange, opened in 1609 by Robert Cecil in the Strand. Shops started to become important as places for Londoners to meet and socialise, restoration London also saw the growth of luxury buildings as advertisements for social position with speculative architects like Nicholas Barbon and Lionel Cranfield
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Consumers' co-operative
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Consumer cooperatives are enterprises owned by consumers and managed democratically which aim at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of their members. They operate within the system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid. Consumers cooperatives often take the form of retail outlets owned and operated by their consumers, however, there are many types of consumers cooperatives, operating in areas such as health care, insurance, housing, utilities and personal finance. Consumers cooperatives may, in turn, form cooperative federations and these may come in the form of cooperative wholesale societies, through which consumers cooperatives collectively purchase goods at wholesale prices and, in some cases, own factories. Alternatively, they may be members of cooperative unions, Consumer cooperation has been a focus of study in the field of cooperative economics. The Co-operative Group is by far the largest of these businesses, itself having over 4500 outlets, Consumer cooperatives rose to prominence during the industrial revolution as part of the labour movement. As employment moved to areas and job sectors declined, workers began organizing and controlling businesses for themselves. Workers cooperative were originally sparked by critical reaction to industrial capitalism, the formation of some workers cooperatives were designed to cope with the evils of unbridled capitalism and the insecurities of wage labor. In the decades that followed, several cooperatives or cooperative societies formed including Lennoxtown Friendly Victualling Society, the philosophy that underpinned the cooperative movement stemmed from the socialist writings of thinkers including Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. These ideas were put into effect successfully in the mills of New Lanark. It was here that the first co-operative store was opened and he tried to form such communities in Orbiston in Scotland and in New Harmony, Indiana in the United States of America, but both communities failed. Similar early experiments were made in the early 19th century and by 1830 there were several hundred co-operatives, dr William King made Owens ideas more workable and practical. He believed in starting small, and realized that the classes would need to set up co-operatives for themselves. He founded a periodical called The Co-operator, the first edition of which appeared on 1 May 1828. This gave a mixture of co-operative philosophy and practical advice about running a shop using cooperative principles, the first successful organization was the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, established in England in 1844. The Rochdale Pioneers established the ‘Rochdale Principles’ on which ran their cooperative. This became the basis for the development and growth of the cooperative movement. On December 21,1844, they opened their store with a very meagre selection of butter, sugar, flour, oatmeal, within three months, they expanded their selection to include tea and tobacco, and they were soon known for providing high quality, unadulterated goods
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Consumption (economics)
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Consumption is major concept in economics and is also studied by many other social sciences. Economists are particularly interested in the relationship between consumption and income, as modeled with the consumption function, different schools of economists define production and consumption differently. Other economists define consumption much more broadly, as the aggregate of all activity that does not entail the design, production and marketing of goods. The consumption function is a function that expresses consumer spending in terms of its determinants, such as income. The Keynesian consumption function is known as the absolute income hypothesis, as it only bases consumption on current income. Criticism of this led to the development of Milton Friedmans permanent income hypothesis. Consumption is defined in part by comparison to production, in the tradition of the Columbia School of Household Economics, also known as the New Home Economics, commercial consumption has to be analyzed in the context of household production. The opportunity cost of time affects the cost of home-produced substitutes and therefore demand for commercial goods, the elasticity of demand for consumption goods is also a function of who performs chores in households and how their spouses compensate them for opportunity costs of home production. Different schools of economists define production and consumption differently, other economists define consumption much more broadly, as the aggregate of all economic activity that does not entail the design, production and marketing of goods and services. Consumption can also be measured by a variety of different ways such as energy in energy economics metrics, aggregate consumption is a component of aggregate demand. According to the UN, today’s consumption is undermining the environmental resource base, and the dynamics of the consumption-poverty-inequality-environment nexus are accelerating. Developing countries like India, as they move down the path of copying the consumption patterns of developed economies, some economists talk about putting a price on using earths resources which is in addition to the cost of just extracting them. Die Broke is a similar idea, distinction, A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. The World of Goods, Towards an Anthropology of Consumption, ivanova, Diana, Stadler, Konstantin, Steen-Olsen, Kjartan, Wood, Richard, Vita, Gibran, Tukker, Arnold, Hertwich, Edgar G. Environmental Impact Assessment of Household Consumption. An essay examining the strengths and weaknesses of Keyness theory of consumption
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Consumtariat
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Netocracy was a term invented by the editorial board of the American technology magazine Wired in the early 1990s. The concept was picked up and redefined by the Swedish philosophers Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist for their book Netocracy — The New Power Elite. The netocracy concept has been compared with Richard Floridas concept of the creative class, Bard and Söderqvist have also defined an under-class in opposition to the netocracy, which they refer to as the consumtariat. Alexander Bard describes a new underclass called the consumtariat, a portmanteau of consumer and proletariat, whose activity is consumption. Netocracy can also refer to Internet-enabled democracy where issue-based politics will supersede party-based politics, in Washington, labor focused on lobbying Congress over the China-trade issue, leaving the IMF and the World Bank to the ad hoc Netocracy. From his bungalow in Berkeley, hes spreading the word of grassroots netocracy to the Beltway and he formed an Internet political consulting firm with Jerome. Speech by Alexander Bard Interview with the authors of Netocracy Part 12345
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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Anti-consumerism
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Anti-consumerism is a sociopolitical ideology that is opposed to consumerism, the continual buying and consuming of material possessions. The criticism of materialism as a dehumanizing behaviour that is destructive of the Earth, as human habitat, comes from religion. From the secular perspective, social activism indicates that from consumerist materialism derive crime, industrial pollution and the consequent environmental degradation, and war as a business. The term consumerism also denotes economic policies associated with Keynesian economics, many anti-corporate activists believe the rise of large-business corporations poses a threat to the legitimate authority of nation states and the public sphere. They feel corporations are invading peoples privacy, manipulating politics and governments, anti-consumerism protesters point out that the main responsibility of a corporation is to answer only to shareholders, giving human rights and other issues almost no consideration. The management does have a responsibility to their shareholders, since any philanthropic activities that do not directly serve the business could be deemed to be a breach of trust. This sort of financial responsibility means that multi-national corporations will pursue strategies to intensify labor, for example, they will attempt to find low wage economies with laws which are conveniently lenient on human rights, the natural environment, trade union organization and so on. It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly, trying to reduce environmental pollution without reducing consumerism is like combating drug trafficking without reducing the drug addiction. It is a term which most people deny, having some more specific excuse or rationalization for consumption other than the idea that they are compelled to consume. A culture that has an amount of consumerism is referred to as a consumer culture. The older term conspicuous consumption described the United States in the 1960s, but was linked to larger debates about media influence, culture jamming. The term and concept of conspicuous consumption originated at the turn of the 20th century in the writing of economist Thorstein Veblen, the term describes an apparently irrational and confounding form of economic behaviour. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate, according to archaeologists, evidence of conspicuous consumption up to several millennia ago has been found, suggesting that such behavior is inherent to humans. Anti-consumerists believe advertising plays a role in human life by informing values and assumptions of the cultural system, deeming what is acceptable. They declare that ads create a world where commodities appear as the key to securing happiness. Anti-consumerists cite studies that find that individuals believe their quality of life improves in relation to values that lie outside the capability of the market place. Therefore, advertising attempts to equate the social with the material by utilizing images and slogans to link commodities with the sources of human happiness. The underlying message is that owning these products will enhance our image, anti-consumerists claim that in a consumerist society, advertisement images disempower and objectify the consumer
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Consumer revolution
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The consumer revolution marked a departure from the traditional mode of life that was dominated by frugality and scarcity to one of increasingly mass consumption in society. Consumerism has weak links with the Western world, but is in fact an international phenomenon, people purchasing goods and consuming materials in excess of their basic needs is as old as the first civilizations. The consumer society emerged in the seventeenth century and intensified throughout the eighteenth century. Change was propelled by the growing middle-class who embraced new ideas about luxury consumption and this revolution encompassed the growth in construction of vast country estates specifically designed to cater for comfort and the increased availability of luxury goods aimed at a growing market. This included sugar, tobacco, tea and coffee, these were grown on vast slave plantations in Caribbean colonies as demand steadily rose. In particular, sugar consumption in Britain during the course of the 18th century increased by a factor of 20, moreover, the expansion of trade and markets also contributed to the burgeoning consumer revolution, by increasing the variety of goods that could be made available to affluent society. Marketplaces expanded as shopping centres, such as the New Exchange, shops started to become important as places for Londoners to meet and socialise and became popular destinations alongside the theatre. Restoration London also saw the growth of buildings as advertisements for social position with speculative architects like Nicholas Barbon. There was growth in industries like glass making and silk manufacturing and these trends were vastly accelerated in the 18th century, as rising prosperity and social mobility increased the number of people with disposable income for consumption. The pottery inventor and entrepreneur, Josiah Wedgwood, noticed the way aristocratic fashions, themselves subject to changes in direction. His example was followed by other producers of a range of products. Popular culture drew aesthetic techniques, design, and technology from the goods England gathered from trade in Asia, with the increased demand for Asian ceramics, European markets had difficulty supplying buyers so inventors started imitating Chinese porcelain. Imitation goods were used to disguise social class. Middle-class consumers could not afford the same exotic luxury goods brought back from overseas trade that the class used to distinguish their elevated rank. Markets and shops whose target buyers were middle-class consumers began creating semi-luxury goods that imitated actual luxury goods, household decorations, kitchenware, clothes, and transportation vehicles were all objects that could be used to crossover into polite society. The goal was not to mimic the exact product, but instead use the techniques that successful in other European imitations to create a superior product. Imitation and semi-luxury goods were also popular because they showed the modernization of English production, large-scale production required standardization, advanced mechanical replication, and an organized system of assembly. Substitutes for the materials used to create the original products were seen as a show of enlightened and advanced thinking
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Ethical consumerism
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Ethical consumerism is a type of consumer activism that is based on the concept of dollar voting. It is practiced through positive buying in that products are favoured, or moral boycott. The term ethical consumer, now used generically, was first popularised by the UK magazine Ethical Consumer, Ethical Consumer magazines key innovation was to produce ratings tables, inspired by the criteria-based approach of the then emerging ethical investment movement. Today, Bloomberg and Reuters provide environmental, social and governance ratings direct to the financial data screens of hundreds of thousands of stock market traders, the not-for-profit Ethical Consumer Research Association continues to publish Ethical Consumer and its associated website, which provides free access to ethical ratings tables. Some trust criteria, e. g. creditworthiness or implied warranty, are considered to be part of any purchasing or sourcing decision. Paul Hawken, a proponent of Natural Capitalism, refers to comprehensive outcomes of production services as opposed to the outcomes of using the product of such services. Some theorists believe that it is the clearest way that we express our actual moral choices, for example, McDonalds started to sell salads and has a corporate social responsibility blog. Ethical Consumerism can be seen as a movement in marketing, which may or may not reflect changes in the practices of businesses. Particular areas of interest for large businesses are environmental impact and the treatment of workers at the bottom of the organisational hierarchy and this change reflects an increasing awareness of ethical issues and corporate identity amongst mainstream consumers. This practice has extended in some developing nations, e. g. where every item carries the name, phone number. And, more importantly, to prove that the item was not made by prison labor, such labels have also been used for boycotts, as when the merchandise mark Made in Germany was introduced in 1887. These labels serve as tokens of some reliable validation process, some instructional capital and they also signal some social capital, or trust, in some community of auditors that must follow those instructions to validate those labels. In 2009, Atlantas Virginia-Highland neighborhood became the first Carbon-Neutral Zone in the United States, seventeen merchants in Virginia-Highland allowed their carbon footprint to be audited. Now, they are partnered with the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project—thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia—through the Chicago Climate Exchange, the businesses involved in the partnership display the Verus Carbon Neutral seal in each store front and posted a sign prominently declaring the areas Carbon Neutral status. Over time, some theorists suggest, the amount of capital or trust invested in nation-states will continue to decrease. This can only be offset by retrenched national sovereignty to reinforce shared national standards in tax, trade, and tariff laws and these arguments have been a major focus of the anti-globalization movement, which includes many broader arguments against the amoral nature of markets as such. GfK NOP, the research group, has made a five-country study of consumer beliefs about the ethics of large companies. com. The countries surveyed were Germany, the United States, Britain, France, more than half of respondents in Germany and the US believed there is a serious deterioration in standards of corporate practice
