I was up at my favouritest Parents Without Partners Opp Shop in Upper Gully to-day.

To-day, Friday 13 June, and to-morrow, Saturday 14 June, they are having a Dollar Day.

They are stocked to the hilt and they want all their regulars to benefit from the sale.

As well, they want to welcome lots of newcomers too.

So, time to hotfoot it to Rose Street, Upper Ferntree Gully.

Directions:

Head east to the Dandenong Ranges,

turn right from Burwood Highway into Dawson Street, Upper Ferntree Gully

(Ferntree Gully Plaza Shopping Centre on one side of Dawson Street

and the Royal Hotel on the other side)

Take first turn to the left - along Rose Street.

Rose Street bends to the left.

On the bend look right and there it is!

Your money is well spent

because PWP at Upper Gully contributes to the support of Emergency Housing in the south-east and, in addition, pays the wages of a Social Worker to assist those in need of the housing.

~~~
When you can do nothing else: bear witness.

Kevin Rudd goes a price watching - ACCC and all!

Kevin, didn't know you cared. Fancy you referring to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) a price watch mechanism on grocery prices.

Fresh from the support of Howard's Aboriginal Shock and Awe/Blitzkrieg, via an appearance at the Lowy Institute for International Policy explaining how to tidy up the nether regions surrounding the island continent, your positioning yourself as the consumer's best friend. A-a-a-h, Kevin.

Sorry, don't see you as either Ralph Nader or a re-incarnation of Gabby Horan. However, there are a few things, Kevin, that Miss Eagle would like to know:

1. When Woolworths campaigns on rolling back prices what does this mean for a) employees and b) the farmers who supply Woolworths. Perhaps these questions could be directed to Roger Corbett AM (for Woolworths) and Donald McGauchie AO (for the National Farmers Federation and all farmers) who are each members of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia?
2. Does rolling back food prices or depressing prices through monopoly/duopoly market share mean depressing the income of workers and farmers?
3. If this is so, doesn't it mean that consumers ought to be told the truth about how cheap food at the hands of a retail oligarchy can mean a lower livelihood for many Australians? Y'see, Kev, some of us are a bit scared of the Wal-Mart syndrome - and even an invasion of Wal-Mart itself (what with Wal-Mart's mascot of The Rollback Man 'n' all).
4. Would you run this by Warwick McKibbin, another RBA Board member, next time you are over at the Lowy Institute - particularly when, in a globalized economic environment, governments in higher waged western countries are looking at ways of depressing incomes to compete with low-waged Asian countries providing huge numbers of cheap imports.
5. Oops - after the last part of Q.4 Miss E recalled how we have an almost open slather - due to the lessening or elimination of tariffs and quotas - for imports irrespective of the Current Account Deficit. But perhaps you and Warwick can nut this one out as well.
6. While you're at it, could you run over and have a chat with Ian Harper at the Fair Pay Commission? You might take Warwick with you. Professor Harper made it plain in his recent speech at the National Press Club that, other than the RBA, his was the only organisation with such economic and decision-making independence and that it was the RBA that the FPC should be most logically compared with. With the RBA's role on interest rates and the FPC's role for the lowly paid, this is of cold comfort to the recipients of the low wage rise just given in an economy said to be booming and whose high-end recipients could pay the annual wages of numerous low wage earners all on their own.
   

So Kevin - more and better information please, otherwise this is merely window-dressing and a very poor attempt to look like a man of the ordinary people.

Woolworths, Safeway, Liquor and Fuel - but not food

Miss Eagle has sent the following email to Liz in Victorian Regional Office of Safeway (the name used by Woolworths in Victoria). It is self-explanatory. If you, dear Reader, agree with Miss E, please feel free to write to Woolworths in your state. If you are writing in Victoria, please send to ejamieson@woolworths.com.au.

This afternoon, I was in the Safeway store at Burwood Highway, Ferntree Gully (not the Mountain Gate store). I was stunned to see an advertisement stating, that if customers purchased $60 of goods from Safeway Liquor, they would receive a 20c a litre discount on fuel.

I am amazed at the ethics of such a campaign. I have been told by Kerry in the Area 5 office that this was part of a national campaign organised by the Marketing Division of Woolworths.

The campaign has certainly not been well thought through. It sends very mixed messages to the community:

1. Alcohol is more valuable than food because it attracts a larger discount on fuel at the bowser.
2. $60 worth of alcohol far outweighs in value at the bowser any amount large or small spent on food.
3. The campaign links alcohol to driving in an encouraging way - in more or less the same way that large car parks at suburban hotels encourage a drink and drive mentality.
4. Woolworths, whose income is derived - in the main - from families, encourages a significant slice of the family budget to be devoted to alcohol.
5. The campaign seeks to encourage a significant amount of spending on alcohol which is the root cause of violence and road deaths in our society and ties the name of Woolworths/Safeway to it.

I would ask you to immediately withdraw this marketing campaign from all Woolworths and Safeway stores and to refrain from any similar type of marketing in the future.

I also wish to complain about the way complaints are handled within Woolworths and Safeway.

I am told that the Woolworths system means that someone in the local regional office will email someone in Sydney but that the system does not allow for me to be cc'd. So I have no way of knowing the accuracy of material forwarded to the responsible person regarding my complaint. I have rung the corporate office in Sydney who referred me back to the local regional office. Sydney refused to give me the name of the person with responsibility for the campaign. I then asked for the title, the phone number and the email of the person responsible for the marketing campaign. This too was refused. There is clearly no way for the customer to be in direct contact with the person with corporate responsibility. I am told that the matter will take two business days and I am familiar with the time limit that Woolworths sets itself to respond.

I fear that the manner in which Woolworths deals with complaints means that the complaint will not be acted upon in a positive manner leading to the withdrawal of the campaign and that Woolworths will go on its merry way regardless.

Yours sincerely,

[Name supplied] [address supplied]
Email: [supplied]
Phone: [supplied]
Blogs: Oz Tucker at http://oztucker.blogspot.com/
The Trad Pad at http://tradpad.blogspot.com/
The Eagle's Nest at http://eaglesplace.blogspot.com

We'll wait to see what - if anything - happens.

Shopping: therapy, festival, compulsion, illness, manipulation

Ramada - Mall of America

Shopping is better than sex.
If you're not satisfied after shopping you can make an exchange for something you really like.

Adrienne Gusoff

Shop Til You Drop Magazine

What is it about shopping? What is it about shopping and the female of the species? Can we live with it? Can we live without it?

We talk about retail therapy. There seems to be a word for shopping til you drop: oniomania. Melbourne - which has more than its fair share of bread and circuses - is contemplating, as Miss Eagle has mentioned before, a shopping festival. Dubai actually has one and so has Hong Kong.

It is lovely to walk through beautiful shops selling beautiful things - even if one doesn't spend. Miss Eagle can still dream about Prada and Bulgari even if she can't afford it. This is why, even though she has not spent a cent there, Miss E was thrilled by the refurbishment of the Ground Floor at David Jones' Burke Street Mall store.

Could there possibly be a down side?

There is the illness. The cultural distortion which sees Hot Cross Buns - an Easter tradition - on sale before Epiphany. Advertising manipulating our children. The sexualization of our children. And for more information on how, when we consume, we are consumed go here.

Then there is the economic impact. Some see the globalization of retail and commodities which it sells as a positive thing. This article - brief as it is - comes out on the positive size while mentioning social disruption and the loss of jobs in some sectors of the economy.

We need to remember that when we purchase all that stuff from China and India it is great for their economies. And they really do need jobs. But when we lose jobs in this nation, we also lose skills - skills that are not always readily replaced with new ones. We can also lose access to jobs and personal economic development for women and young people.

So what is the solution? Miss E has none except the caveat emptor (buyer beware) provisions. Be aware! Demand accountability - not just from individuals but from governments and corporations.

If we become aware and demand accountability, we will become smart, ethical shoppers.

And for increasing numbers of us, we will go this way to the opp shop.

Myer on the move

Miss Eagle watches with interest the movement at Myer.

May it mean a better deal for the consumer.