Smart Shoppers

One time I met and talked with Herbert Haft. He's dead now but in his time in the late 1950s he helped initiate discounted retail sales in the United States. His Dart Drug on Columbia Road was the first store in the country to disregard manufacturers suggested retail prices and discount. He was sued by dozens of manufacturers....

One of the the things he said to me is that people with money are the best shoppers and seekers of bargains. So this article from the Chicago Sun-Times, "State St. gets a bargain ," is interesting because of the point it makes about locating the Loehmann's discount store on State Street in Chicago:

Forcellati described the downtown shopper as fitting Loehmann's typical shopper: She knows she can get a good buy at $29.99, but she also understands that buying a top-notch Italian designer handbag for $400 "is a steal."