Consumer Goods Sector

If you’re an American, you could probably throw away half your stuff and still have more than the average Canadian. Flat-screen TVs, cheap cotton shirts, a cupboard full of canned foods you’ll probably donate before they expire, mismatching Hanes socks, cracked computer monitors, and yes, a compact disc player sitting in a box next to an old MP3 player.

They’re all part of the consumer goods sector. This sector relies heavily on customer taste, behavior, and downright gluttony to remain profitable. This sector defines Americanism. It’s the reason you have a “Junk Drawer.”

Here, you’ll find cheap, affordable, likely imported stuff that you can fill your house with. Then, when you’ve got too many things that say “Made in China,” you could donate them.

“Could” is the key word.

But odds are you’re an all-American hoarder. So you’ll just rent out a storage facility, because your brain has convinced you you’ll die alone without all those Tupperware lids, remote controls, 67 cell phone chargers, headphones without the earbuds, Red-Blue-Green cords to televisions that can’t even be sold for parts anymore, and for some reason old keys that haven’t kissed the inside of a lock in decades.

Companies in the consumer goods sector are heavily consolidated, and have very lean operations. They make inexpensive things and sell them to us 365 days a year. Then they fill the television screens with advertisements for newer versions of these products. Our compulsion to be popular drives us to consume.

And then comes the big day. The Super Bowl of Consumer Goods Brands.

On Black Friday, The Day after Thanksgiving, we reenact Thunderdome in the aisle of Walmart because we are dying for that outdated model of the VIZIO television now that it’s 30% off.

It’ll look great in a storage locker in five years.