Peter F. Drucker Boxed Set (8 Books) (The Drucker Library)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Why Consumers Aren’t Behaving

EVERY BODY KNOWS HOW THE CONSUMER ought to behave, except the consumer.

Everybody knows, for instance, that the first thing consumers cut back, at the slightest hint of economic trouble, is eating out. We have now (i.e., in 1976) been through two, if not three, years of fairly serious economic turbulence—whether you call it a “severe recession” or a “mild depression.” Yet consumer buying of prepared meals, in the form of restaurant meals, at such convenience food stores as McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken, or in the form of fully prepared dinners ready to be heated and served, has been going straight ...