Mind the GAP
As promised I bought Mark a new pair of boxer shorts. I was hoping the GAP “mid season sale” (???) would come up trumps. Well it did for me but for Mark I got a non sale stripy green and yellow figure hugging square cut boxer briefs. I have him down as a green colour person. It is in his eyes. Hope he likes them. (Receipt in bag.)
I only went in for the boxers but love a bargain. How much of a bargain or false economy are the following?
| 1. | Polo Top, green | was £16.50 | now £2.99 |
| 2. | Polo Top, blue | was £16.50 | now £2.99 |
| 3. | Polo Top, white | was £16.50 | now £2.99 |
| 4. | Jeans, black | was £45.00 | now £6.99 |
| 5. | Jeans, sandy | was £45.00 | now £6.99 |
| 6. | Scarf, black | was £16.50 | now £1.99 |
| 7. | Classic Fit shirt, checked | was £29.50 | now £2.99 |
| 8. | Classic Fit shirt | was £29.50 | now £2.99 |
| 9. | Scarf, grey | was £16.50 | now £1.99 |
| 10. | Jumper | was £29.50 | now £2.99 |
| 11. | Jumper | was £28.00 | now £2.99 |
| 12. | Jumper | was £29.50 | now £2.99 |
| £318.50 | £41.88 |
The till person’s small talk kicked off with a light hearted remark that they must losing money on these items. I suggested it could be part of a short term loss minimising strategy in a long term fiercely competitive market chasing savvy shoppers and was going to add that that maybe GAP was splitting the social economic demographics of their consumers and so effectively running, albeit loosely, discriminating markets maximising profits separately in both according to their respective demand curves but realised the “talk” was not big enough.
At such points in my life I am struck by how similar I can be to the character Ross G (of Friends) and his lack of small talk and recall the scene of ordering pizzas twice in order to chat up the delivery woman and instead talks about adding odour to otherwise odourless gas. I need to get out more…
So how do GAP sell such cheap clothes? The above items were made in Hong Kong, China, Vietnam and Bangladesh. I understand they have ceased their “past” of being Americans exploiting others but really have no idea. Hmmm, possible moral dilemma.
With regards my bargain “slash” false economy it comes down to need for and fitting of clothes as well as price. I have little or no need for more clothes, well, maybe the shirts. And the jeans at a push. They all fit nicely except for the light coloured jeans which I will be taking scissors to. The 34″ inside leg is 2″ too much.
Methinks bargain. In fact I might go back tomorrow for that third pair of jeans I considered today, and another scarf in way of cheap and cheerful Christmas present.
Well…having worked for the Gap over xmas, I can safely say they still run sweat shops. Not only that, but you have the opportunity to donate a percentage of your earnings to the Gap children workers charity (no joke) to improve working conditions and ensure children are not employed when they shouldn’t be! My friends famous comment to her line manager after she was told she had the job was ‘is that guilt money?’. Needless to say, it didn’t go down well!
Also…side comment and all, but the clothes all come in boxes and each item is wrapped in a plastic bag. Some are so full and heavy, girls are not supposed to lift them, quite often, however, 6 boxes of about 1m2 and 20cm deep would contain…a single jumper (or varient). So either Gap is a brand name covering a mafia money laundering, or they actually do make enough money on sale items (cos who on earth shops there full price?) by 3rd world child labour!
The child labour issue is not straight forward.
It is difficult for the likes of us to understand the benefits of child labour in desperately poor developing economies because the way of life and social economics are so alien. For example if a teenager has a choice to earn money for their family or go hungry or turn to crime then working is the best option. Child labour, per se, is not morally wrong, in my opinion.
What is wrong about child labour, and labour more generally, are health and safety problems, breaches of local law, faulty age documentation, excessive hours and unclear wage statements etc etc etc…
My whistle stop tour of “child labour” by google teaches me that the benefits of eliminating child labour out weight the costs of doing so. All that is needed is money and belief.
To return this (for want of a better word) discussion to GAP they did “terminate business with 136 factories” as mentioned in their 2003 social responsibility report (so I have just read). Also to be fair to GAP these are common occurrences in the garment industry. It is a nasty old world we live in. I was reading this morning an article at treehugger about using morally correct credit:
“Those of us who depend on e-commerce to shop for much of the eco-hip fashion, gizmos and accessories featured in TreeHugger also depend on credit cards to make the transactions. Unfortunately many credit institutions are known to finance some rather un-TreeHuggeresque activities (like illegal logging and dirty gold mining), so even though the end (product) is good, the means (credit) we use to get there isn’t so great.”
Anyway…
Laura I am looking forward to your Bath visit with cheeky bee Han, see you then. x