Duped by Martha!!!!

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I won a small law suit this past summer and had an opportunity to pay off some old debts, finance my daughter's wedding and help my two sons financially before indulging myself a little.

Since I have earned $10,000 or less for the past six years, I had a pent up demand to spend. One of the things I bought was a set of baskets from MArtha Stewart. Many of the things MArtha sells that one of my employers also sells are generally about the same in price and so although these baskets were pricey, I assumed they would be of high quality. Yeah, right!

I pictured myself using them for my quilting. Shaker boxes to store the cut cloth . . . and baskets to carry projects to class. The second time I used Martha's basket, the handle broke, coming apart where it joined the basket.

I was thinking of how I could frame a complaint to the Martha Empire when I stopped in at the Trader Joe's that shares a building with my son's therapist. There was the basket.

Martha charges $108 for that single basket with a set of four available for $198. Trader Joe's offers the largest of the four for $14.95 or nearly 1/6th the price Martha charges.

This is an unreasonable mark up.

When I was in college, there was a girl who wanted to join the John Birch Society as her mother was a member. The mother advised against it as the girl had a military career in mind. (Incidentally, when she took the GRE, she scored in the 2nd percentile.) Whenever anyone said anything she disagreed with, she said, "You've been duped by the communists." Well, I was duped by the capitalists! or rather by one in particular.

How have the capitalists duped you?

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plainoldme
plainoldme, have you ever been to a K-Mart store to see the crap sold under Martha Stewart's name?

She is a manic super capitalist and not a very nice person.

As for dupes, I find fewer dupe victims on A2K than usually found in the general population.

BBB

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I think she is evil incarnate, and i dont really know why.

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In general if you dont look around, you do not notice you're paying too much.
There are a great many people who know nothing of the things 'ms evil' sells under her name to know they're getting robbed blind, or they simply cant or wont do things themselves so they pay.
What can I say POM, next time shop around gal, its the only way....in this day and age when we have the world of shopping at our finger tips its not frugal or cheap...its smart.
I did buy some curtains under the 'ms evil' name at KMart but, only because I liked them and wanted them, not because of the name or the price and I actually didnt think that 60.00 for 4 lace panels and 2 three piece tiers was all that much in comparison. Interestingly enough, I repainted the room recently and lo and behold, the curtains look even better now...boy, am I getting my money's worth out of that purchase! Sometimes its all good.

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GET OFFA MARTHA!!! Evil or Very Mad

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I am a person who did a lot of craft type things as I was a child/young woman, then stopped all that for years, and then Martha came along, doing the obvious. I refused to subscribe to the magazine, etc., and some of my lunches with friends turned into "can you believe..." story episodes on the extremes of craftiness.

Still, I appreciate that she has brought a lot of how to advice to new generations.

Certainly I like better linens, and so on, but I can't afford several hundred dollar sheets.

On baskets, I never knew how much I liked Cost Plus (which is expensive but has a fair selection) til I moved north past the reach of most chain emporiums. Luckily I have a good supply of big baskets from thrift store forays back in LA.

That would seem to be a virtue of a big city, that you can find global import stores stacked to the ceilings with baskets, etc.

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Re: Duped by Martha!!!!

plainoldme wrote:

I won a small law suit this past summer and had an opportunity to pay off some old debts, finance my daughter's wedding and help my two sons financially before indulging myself a little.

Since I have earned $10,000 or less for the past six years, I had a pent up demand to spend. One of the things I bought was a set of baskets from MArtha Stewart. Many of the things MArtha sells that one of my employers also sells are generally about the same in price and so although these baskets were pricey, I assumed they would be of high quality. Yeah, right!

I pictured myself using them for my quilting. Shaker boxes to store the cut cloth . . . and baskets to carry projects to class. The second time I used Martha's basket, the handle broke, coming apart where it joined the basket.

I was thinking of how I could frame a complaint to the Martha Empire when I stopped in at the Trader Joe's that shares a building with my son's therapist. There was the basket.

Martha charges $108 for that single basket with a set of four available for $198. Trader Joe's offers the largest of the four for $14.95 or nearly 1/6th the price Martha charges.

This is an unreasonable mark up.

When I was in college, there was a girl who wanted to join the John Birch Society as her mother was a member. The mother advised against it as the girl had a military career in mind. (Incidentally, when she took the GRE, she scored in the 2nd percentile.) Whenever anyone said anything she disagreed with, she said, "You've been duped by the communists." Well, I was duped by the capitalists! or rather by one in particular.

How have the capitalists duped you?

If you're willing to pay $108 for a basket, you deserve to be duped. That's the point of capitalism - you charge the price people will pay. You payed it. Capitalism works fine when there isn't a monopoly, and there isn't a monopoly on baskets. If people didn't buy "Martha Stewart" baskets at $108 dollars, the price would be lower.
Don't blame capitalism for duping you, blame yourself for your willingness to pay extra for a stamp of someone's name. Oh and uh, I have a big red bridge over lakefront property you may want to take a look at...

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I am not a collector of labels. If I like something, I buy it, as long as it is on sale. Actually, when a manufacturer is "hot" he is able to charge what the market will bear. Remember, when you buy a popular label, you the cost of advertising is factored in to the price of the item.

That is capitalism. Even if you were duped, POM, capitalism is, hands down, the best system around. It is up to the consumer to learn about quality, and get the best bang for his buck.

(Actually, I DO buy labels, sort of. I find items in discount stores, the label is cut out, but there is enough left so that I can see the name of the manufacturer! )

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As a matter of fact, Phoenix, even when you buy an UNpopular label, the cost of advertising is factored into the price! The popular brands can command higher prices because the demand for the label is higher. That's the only difference.

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Eva- True. I stand corrected. But, I still maintain that many of the more popular brands spend more on ads than the lesser brands. I have no facts and figures to back this up. It IS a perception that I have though!

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First of all,
I did shop around. there is a store here in Cambridge, MA called China Fair that sells a large selection of baskets. None of them were linen lined as the Martha baskets and it was the linen lining, not the Martha name that made them desireable. As a seamstress, I know that linen is expensive.

The lined baskets at China Fair were generally lined in very thin, very poor quality material and were more expensive than the Trader Joe baskets but still less than the Martha version. In fact, I sighed over the baskets for two years before the law suit gave me the money. I had the baskets since August and Trader Joe's -- which buys lots and sells them out and so has irregular supplies and often only "one offs" only had the baskets in November and then at the store in Newtown, not in my more local Arlington store.

Some of the things Martha sells, I can buy at Williams Sonoma, where I work. Her prices can be slightly more or the same as WS and, frankly, discount chains that carry the same merchandise as WS usually match WS prices.

There are things that Martha sells that I like, just as Quinn likes her curtains -- which were a good price. As an example, were I to buy a set of nesting mixing bowls, I would buy Martha's ceramic ones which I like better than any currently available at WS.

The basket was to match my image of myself as a quilter. I do think that the mark up on that item was terrible.

I've read Just Desserts, the martha bio. But I do think Martha has helped to bring back graciousness and style. This basket, unfortunately, is a rip off!

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

Eva- True. I stand corrected. But, I still maintain that many of the more popular brands spend more on ads than the lesser brands. I have no facts and figures to back this up. It IS a perception that I have though!

You may be right, Phoenix. But only because they CAN spend more on advertising...because they're selling more stuff. Unfortunately (or fortunately, for those of us in marketing fields!) this is a vicious circle. The more you promote>the more you increase demand>the higher the demand>the higher the price you can charge>the more profit you make>the more money you have for promotion>the more you promote>.....etc. The companies that don't understand this are the losers in today's marketplace.

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You've got to spend money to make money.

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I've never been much of a fan of Martha -- but I think she is being railroaded right now.

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I agree with Portal Star on this one.

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Can't you return the basket, POM? It broke, for Pete's sake. Anyway, that's what I'd have done, but I'm a maniac for returning stuff. I think it teaches the store they've got to stand behind their products. I don't shop at places where I can't return things.

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One thing I've learned in this life is "try to get your money back" if it doesn't live up to its name. $108 for any basket that can be made in a third world country for less than US$1 is capitalism, but you can't blame the seller. The first thing is try to get your money back. If not, write to the company. If that doesn't work, write to your local newspaper to have them put an article in the newspaper for everybody to see. In my younger days, I never complained about the food served in a restaurant. I complain all the time now, and the very least any good restaurant will do is to "replace" your food with the quality you expect. I've never been disappointed. If they don't satisfy you, just don't go back, and tell all your friends about the "bad" experience.

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About getting money back. I work for WilliamsSonoma, which as a company, tends to be a bit of a patsy for accepting returns. People bring back merchandise where the fault of its failure is theirs and we are pretty generous with them.

Some of those people are crazy and the managers just want to get rid of them without a scene. Some are devious like the woman who tried to palm off on my a pepper mill I know WS never sold. Some simply don't know that you can not cook on high, that you must wash your pots and pans after each use, that you can not put aluminum or non-stick surfaces or knives with edges in the dishwasher. Also, others are incapable of washing dishes and making them clean.

I do think the $108 price tag is high but I was expecting better quality. True, the linen was from either Russia or Poland and not from Ireland, but linen is still expensive. Remember that Trader Joes offers very, very low prices and that $15 is high for them.

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I must have awful taste and style. I like the Martha Stewart stuff offered at KMart. I furnished and decorated my apartment with stuff bought from Target, KMart and WalMart and really like the finished result.

I like some of Thomas Kinkade's work. Even bought one of his large coffee table books and cut out the ones I especially liked, framed them nicely and use them as some of the decor in my home.

I've had more disappointments with things purchased at so called upscale stores and designer outlets then I have ever had with things from the discount stores.

I don't buy because of the name on the label. In fact, a designer name on a label is more often then not, a reason for me not to buy. I haven't always lived on a tight budget but have always purchased the best quality for the lowest price I can get. If I can't find exactly what I want, I buy something close and then enhance it with my own artistry.

The reason I buy the Martha Stewart stuff is not for her name, but because she offers a lot more design, variety and color then the usual standard 2 or 3 colors offered at other places and I get a better quality for the same price at the other discount stores.

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Patty and Frank are absolutely right about returning anything which doesn't live up to expected standards. As Patty said, it teaches the store that you refuse to pay for something of dubious value when it was advertised as quality merchandise.

Many stores have generous return policies and I'm sure you have some reticence about returning something because of your knowledge about the people who abuse the privilege, but think about how many people don't return shoddy items--it evens itself out.

I looooove Cost Plus!!

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Duped by Martha!!!!

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