January 2019
There are specific segments of the retail market that is geared towards marginalized people. In other words, there are goods and services that target disenfranchised people with astronomical profit potentials for the corporations offering these good and services but they often keep people in economic distress more stagnant or make them more poor.
What are these types of goods and services? A big one is appliance rental. Now think for a second why anyone would rent a washing machine, television or other household item and pay double or more what it sells for. Some reasons may be: no down payment, low or no credit score requirement, a lack of cash to even buy a used item and repairs may be included, so should it break they would not need to worry about money to fix the issue.
One of the big appliance renters advertises a dishwasher for $25 first month, $119.00 per month with a final ownership cost of $1439.88. The same dishwasher retails on sale for between $304.99 and $497.70. In addition, there is the risk of loosing the appliance if payments are not met and even legal charges of theft should the renter not return the item.
Another common marketing to marginalized communities is cheap, low quality clothing that does not last and keeps an unusually high perpetual need for buying more clothes. These communities are filled with corner store type clothing retailers who bring in cheaply made clothes that emulate the latest fashions. With transportation issues already an underlining problem in these areas and a lack of understanding that quality clothes can be bought on sale at reputable department stores at equivalent cost, the convenience and unknowing creates a culture of buying cheap clothes which embeds itself in disadvantaged communities. Even quality thrift stores are often not situated in these neighborhoods, further minimizing options of obtaining clothes that last.
Marginalized marketing is not illegal but it is a crime in the court of moral rightness since it is intentional and directed towards people who haven’t the slightness idea that they are entrenched in a cognitive marketing system, aimed at their communities, that disregards the self defeating outcome of this type of consuming. It feeds on their circumstances and aids in making them more poor and less enabled, in the long term scheme of things, to improve their lives.
