There is, doubtless, a period of adjustment in marketing any new product, but innovation has been a staple of growth in the last couple of centuries
There are plenty of innovations that never make it to mass production, we just can't remember what they were. They were failures in their time. The innovation that makes it to mass market was started by a visionary; the failure, by a crackpot. Back to Diffusion of Technology. The early adopters acquire the technolgy prior to the mainstream markets. The concept of the chasm is described where the early adopter market becomes saturated before the mainstream market buys into the product. The business trick is to make it over the chasm before the company goes bankrupt. Some make it some don't, because the length of time associated with the chasm is unpredictable.
On the absence of complaint about curtailed shopping: sociologists have done studies of behavior in lines (queues), and discovered, of course, that Europeans are much more patient than American when forced to wait for any length of time.
I would agree with the first statement. I rarely experience any lines to get into a restaurant. Lines in stores are usually pretty quick. I think they are generally staffed at higher levels than US stores. It compensates for the custom of doing business is an excuse to have a social interaction; but I imagine it doesn't do well for the productivity numbers. I would say that the service in this part of the UK is significantly better than the Baltimore Washington area. When there is a line, we chat with the other customers who are in line; that's why we're there, to chat<s>. As I mentioned in a much earlier post, there are a few outlets that are staying open late, 8:00 PM. I've been in them on a number of occasions. Typically, there are more employees than customers. Given they are a small number of outlets, if there was a demand, they should be packed with customers. It's no secret that the companies are open.
Since you describe a what sounds like a bungalow, which is not what I think of when referring to a bed- and- breakfast,
I don't know whether you've heard what "suspenders" are to Brits, i.e., they're women's garter belts. Sometimes the English word has a different meaning than the American word. B&B is really a very broad category. It might be what you're notion of a B&B is, a bungalow, or a hotel that offers breakfast included in the cost.
The indirect argument. Holiday Inn is in the UK and they aren't stupid. If there was a market for the Holiday Inn model in the UK, as I think you imply, they would be jumping on it like crazy. McDonalds isn't stupid, they have a US model that is very successfull. It's been adapted to the UK market; they offer fast food Tandoori chicken.
...like "hypermarts". Besides, some of these debates are rather like arguing that the Japanese like having a fifth of the living space of the average American: no one finds that plausible, it is only expense that can explain the phenomenon.
If I was consulting on establishing a hypermart in England, I'd say stay out of the North of England, they aren't interested; they want to chat while they do business. Start it in the Southeast, they are more inclined to accept it.
I heard a Brit the other day say, "I've been in an air-conditioned building, and that's not air". The odds are slim to none that I'm going to be able to convince him that air-conditioning will improve his standard of living. Let me put him in Tampa on July 1 and before the end of August he'll be begging me for an air conditioner.
There are many factors, geography, culture, average temperature, customs, cost of real estate, cost of labor that all work together to develop a market demand. What's in demand in the US, isn't necessarily in demand elsewhere.
IMO, I think you're fighting the idea that other countries don't have the same set of consumer priorities that the US has.
I do not know enough about my neighbors's vacations to say (I live in a modest neighborhood), but my impression from colleagues is that they get around pretty much as they please, when vacation time rolls around.
There are a lot of Americans in this area, military, civilian, liberal, conservatives, and everyone of them is amazed at how much the Brits value vacations throughout the economic strata and equally confounded, as I am, at how they manage to afford it.
Administration are formed by mayors, governors, and presidents, not senators.
Marion Barry.
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