Lip service
CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN
The wild flowers of the Wienerwald, blue and pink and purple, already cried out to be picked if not to be picnicked among, and the car parks at Mayerling and Heiligen- kreuz had just started to receive their daily influx of touring coaches. Since Viennese last week were seeking the refreshments of the countryside, it was perfectly natural that some of these should also be imported into their hot and humid city. But I had not expected your actual cow. She stood on the pavement of the busiest, though not the most fashionable, shopping street, attended by a tall blonde in a fantasy dirndl, rolling her great head (the cow, not the blonde) with an expression of infinite and under- standable misery. Understandable, because the store immediately behind her was ex- hibiting every known variety of central and eastern European cheese, whose combined impact, at a temperature in the high seven- ties, had to be smelled to be believed.
The store in question is the home of the Austrian consumer organisation which in recent years has turned Vienna, long known as the birthplace of operetta, psychoanalysis and Apfelstrudel, into the pioneering centre of verbal and visual shopping advice. Its philosophy is that you need not only to read about cheeses before you buy them dis- criminatingly, but to see (and sniff) them in
all their manifestations, to taste and digest them comparatively for yourself, and to be able to discuss their uses and nutritional values with independent experts. And that goes not simply (or principally) for foods, but, with suitable modifications as to experi- ence and consultation, for most other goods and services on which people are thinking of spending money. The operation of the Ver- braticherberatung or `consumer clinic' was first given wide publicity in this column three years ago.
Last month, in the refurbished premises of a defunct boutique just off West Croy- don's main shopping street, the first experi- mental centre was opened. It was at once an object of warmly welcoming noises from the authorities, the retailers and the local press. Though Saturdays proved busiest, there was a steady stream of enquiries throughout the fortnight's pilot run. While the Vien- nese cow was mooing and the Viennese consumer chewing, scores of Croydon citi- zens came for a detailed consultation on one of fifteen major products about which mat- erial had been specially prepared—or, for other purchases, to consult (and, if they wanted, buy) the most recent Which? report.
The object of the service is two-fold. First. word-of-mouth can make comparative information on goods and services available to those whom semi-technical magazines do not reach—often those with least money to spare and for whom the consequences of a mistaken purchase are most catastrophic. Secondly, it can go beyond what monthly magazines provide by giving shoppers a fully up-to-date picture of the market and, perhaps most important of all, by tailoring the advice given to individual circumstances. At the Croydon advice centre this bespoke tailoring occasionally took an exotic turn. What, for example, do you do if you are posted to Turkey, with a small child in tow, and want to get over the winter shortage of fresh fish, fruit and vegetables? Take a freezer with you, perhaps. But if so, which model will suit you, is there a tropical duty version to withstand the Levantine summer, what is the purchase tax position for goods immediately exported, etc., etc.?
Indeed, the visitor has not been the only beneficiary of the Croydon experiment. Much has been learnt about the subjects people are most interested in discussing before they buy and the ways in which information is most usefully given. These lessons can be applied to the running of temporary centres in other suitable areas where premises are found, and the accumu- lated experience should not merely lead to one full-scale, long-term, consumer advice centre; for on the horizon must be the hope that some of the local authorities who have
already shown interest in the scheme may sponsor further centres on these lines in their own areas. The Austrian enterprise already extends beyond Vienna to such cities as Linz and Innsbruck, and at each, I understand, there is municipal participation or subsidy. What I forgot to ask was who paid for that cow.
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