I did a short stint at a high end cookware store (the employee discount!) and my casual observation is that the expensive toys are much more fun if you share them. The people who were happiest with the high-end purchases did a lot of entertaining. Not necessarily formal dinner parties or cocktail parties, but they either hosted people ov…
I did a short stint at a high end cookware store (the employee discount!) and my casual observation is that the expensive toys are much more fun if you share them. The people who were happiest with the high-end purchases did a lot of entertaining. Not necessarily formal dinner parties or cocktail parties, but they either hosted people overnight on a semi-regular basis and thought it was fun to have the item as a "novelty" or had casual recurring social events on their calendar (girl's weekly brunch/book club/poker night/Friday-night-BBQs/game-day-parties). They made up a lot of the repeat customers, who would come in to buy a new thing and couldn't stop raving about the last "toy" they bought. On the flip side, there'd be a rash of people purchasing big ticket novelty items such as espresso machines, Belgian waffle makers, and fancy juicers in early November who would return them a few weeks into January. Maybe they were deliberately scamming the store, but I think at least some genuinely overestimated how badly they wanted the item after they no longer had a house full of company to share it with.
I did a short stint at a high end cookware store (the employee discount!) and my casual observation is that the expensive toys are much more fun if you share them. The people who were happiest with the high-end purchases did a lot of entertaining. Not necessarily formal dinner parties or cocktail parties, but they either hosted people overnight on a semi-regular basis and thought it was fun to have the item as a "novelty" or had casual recurring social events on their calendar (girl's weekly brunch/book club/poker night/Friday-night-BBQs/game-day-parties). They made up a lot of the repeat customers, who would come in to buy a new thing and couldn't stop raving about the last "toy" they bought. On the flip side, there'd be a rash of people purchasing big ticket novelty items such as espresso machines, Belgian waffle makers, and fancy juicers in early November who would return them a few weeks into January. Maybe they were deliberately scamming the store, but I think at least some genuinely overestimated how badly they wanted the item after they no longer had a house full of company to share it with.