The central American product word, and it is a ratio rather than a property. Good value, value for money, best value. A thing is not good or bad. It is good or bad for the price.
retail
The free gift ordinance
Die Zugabeverordnung. The companion law, from 1932, limited free gifts with a purchase. The example used at the time: to stop people buying a bicycle because it came with a kilo of coffee. Repealed on the same day as the Rabattgesetz, and for the same reason — the EU e-commerce directive made it untenable.
Consumer advice
American consumer journalism publishes guidance on how to haggle — what to say at a dealership, when to buy, what the dealer paid, what margin to aim for. The information asymmetry is treated as a problem to be solved rather than as the way things are.
Disposable and durable
Durable goods is a category in American economic statistics, defined as goods expected to last three years or more. Three years. The official threshold for durability in the United States is a period a German would not consider a product life at all.
Customer obsession
Amazon lists it first among its leadership principles: leaders start with the customer and work backwards. Placing it first is the argument. Whoever can speak credibly for the customer has the strongest claim in an American meeting.
The leased vehicle
A large share of new American vehicles are leased rather than bought, typically for two or three years. The buyer never owns the thing and never faces the question of how long it lasts.
Garage sales and flea markets
An ordinary American weekend activity in which private individuals sell household goods and every price is understood to be open. Children learn price negotiation there before they learn it anywhere else.
The trade-in
American transactions routinely fold a second valuation into the first — the old car, the old phone, the old equipment. Two negotiations run at once and each can be used against the other, which both parties understand going in.
Repair
German towns sustain repair trades — cobblers, watchmakers, appliance technicians, tailors — and taking a thing to be mended is ordinary rather than eccentric. The object is assumed to be worth more than the repair costs.
The upgrade cycle
American consumer technology is sold on an annual or biennial refresh, with trade-in programmes and carrier subsidies structured around it. The replacement is planned by the buyer as well as the seller.