This week’s awesome episode kicks off with Pat focusing on The Bates Method. Cristina shops for facts about outlet malls, while Adam cleans up with a segment about Roombas. Lastly, Darren raises our awareness with a recent troubling news story.
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SHOW NOTES
The Bates Method
QuackWatch: Eye Related Quackery
All About Vision: Do Eye Exercises Work?
The Bates Method: Perfect Sight Without Glasses
Wikipedia: Behavioural Optometry
Philip Pollack: The Truth About Eye Exercises
Philip Polack Excerpt on QuackWatch
Company Selling Bates Related Material
Are Outlet Malls What They Seem?
Huffington Post: The Ugly Truth About Outlet Stores Will Break Your Heart
L.A. Times: Outlet malls are growing bigger, more popular
Sens. & Rep. to FTC: Outlet Stores May Be Misleading Consumers
Outlet mall values not always the bargain you think
Outlet Malls Aren’t What They Used To Be
Value Retail News: State of the outlet industry
How Stuff Works: Is Black Friday the biggest shopping day of the year?
The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
2012 State of the Outlet Industry: Outlets find the happy place
BBB: Do You Know What you are Buying at Factory Outlet Malls?
Six Examples of How Overstock.com Ripped Off Consumers
Blumental Warns of Deceptive Marketing
How does a Roomba Map a Room
Roomba Navigation – HowStuffWorks
Hope and Resurrection
Another great episode! Just wondering if Cristina is going to “officially” become a panellist. It would be nice to see her on the website’s banner image.
Funny, my name is also Nick and I too was coming here to ask if Christina’s dulcet tones would be a permanent addition to the cast. I hope so, I think having a woman’s perspective brings a lot to many of the discussions.
Hey Nick and Nick. The answer is: We don’t really know. Cristina has agreed to ‘try it out’ for a while. Dina, who has been on the show a few times, is also going to come on more often. We all agree that a female on the panel would be good for the podcast. So in the short term, the Toronto crew will be some combination of the 3 of us. I expect Elan may show up once in a while too.
Sounds good, thanks Pat! Let her know she’s doing a great job, and I look forward to hearing from Dina and Elan in upcoming episodes.
Cristina repeatedly commented on the “lower quality” of clothes at outlet stores, but I didn’t hear any quality metrics quoted. Is she just saying they aren’t identical to retail? Fair enough, but calling that “quality” makes assumptions about what a consumer should value about their clothes. It always seemed to me that outlet stores are probably an example of price discrimination: targeting a different, lower-income market using very similar products.
I agree with the gist of the show though–it is fairly misleading to imply the products in the outlets were at one point sold in the retail stores. Anecdotally, though, my wife was entirely aware of this: To her, a Kate Spade outlet is just a way to find more Kate Spade stuff, not a way to get the retail stuff cheaper.