Old Navy Zombies

     According to the author of the story on page 268 of the textbook "On Sale at Old Navy: Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies", that people who shop at places such as this are zombies in his eyes. When people notice a sale, no matter if they need the product or not this has a huge influence on their decision whether or not they were originally intending to purchase that particular product or not. This illustrates their zombie like tendencies when shopping because people let the sales and discounts at certain stores such as the Old Navy dominate their decision to spend money, which as a result makes them spend more money if it was not originally intended and the decision was dominated purely by the fact that money could be saved when purchasing more products. This also demonstrates a paradox. It is apparent that people will sacrifice their time and money in order to make a couple sales that they feel are worth the effort on infamous occasions such as Black Friday, where people will be lining up for miles in order to safe a significant amount in time for the holidays.

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     Another way people are similar to zombies in an establishment such as the Old Navy is that popularity in fashion is always changing in the world of Pop Culture. As a result, people will always change their decision making styles in order to keep up with the times and what is considered to be "cool" by today's standards. Businesses such as Old Navy know this, and provide sales and discounts according to what is popular in the media and Pop Culture. This also illustrates a zombie like way of shopping because of conformity and being a slave to what is cool and doing whatever means necessary in order to have the hottest thing on the market at a low cost or not.
     In some cases however, discounts as well as sales can be used to benefit those who do not quite fit the zombie description because the sales can influence those who are actually dependent on the product rather than financial purposes or conformity. People who fit this description when shopping are those who are actually interested in the product regardless of the price but for their own non zombie like purposes rather than for conformity and to fit with which ever common rapidly changing fad is popular at the time.

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     When taking all this into consideration, it is easy to see why the author came up with this zombie shopper hypothesis in his essay located in the textbook. More often than not, people use sales to completely influence their shopping whether to save money or conform to a new idea, making the author's hypothesis a plausible one. Although, has not and is not always been the case every time there is a sale at a particular store, even one such as Old Navy, because there will always be shoppers who are not completely and totally influenced by sales, but for interest in the product itself. As the media and Pop Culture continue to advance, the idea that the author presents about zombies in the stores will continue to be easier to observer and support as well.