Bye Bye Mom & Pop

In reading Emile Zola’s text it becomes apparent that the ideal of the mega mall starts as early as the nineteenth century. The Au Bonheur des Dames shows what happens when the commercial climate for goods and services is pushed to its max. It also shows what happens to the smaller specialty shops that are competing with one another and the Au Bonheur des Dames. They find themselves cutting there prices, and reducing there staff just to compete with the large volume of goods that the Au Bonheur des Dames houses are doing. So what happens to the smaller mom and pop shops when they can no longer compete, do they just close their doors and surrender to the mega mall? From the reading we see that this is not an option for Baudu, who believes this new commercial way of business, is wrong. It is not right to mislead the customer for a profit or is it? How many times have we all went to a store looking for something just to find out that it is no longer available (the get you in the door item). Whatever happened to customer service? It appears that we start to see a glimpse of it’s downfall with Mouret’s sales commission ideal. Does this mean that the sales person will try to sell you as much as possible and not just what you need or what you are specifically looking for? Who knows, but in today’s society it seems that we all want more than what we need. But does where we shop, whether it is the mall or a mom & pop shop change our buying habits? Or is it just the ability to one stop shop for all of our needs, drive us to the mall rather then the local mom & pop shop.