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Discussion » Statements » Rosie's Corner » One-stop shopping. Used to go to 20 difference stores. Now all of those things are sold in ONE STORE. Isn't that better for the shopper?

One-stop shopping. Used to go to 20 difference stores. Now all of those things are sold in ONE STORE. Isn't that better for the shopper?

Posted - May 11, 2020

Responses


  • 3680
    Not in the long run, no, because the very big stores gravitate to very wide ranges of categories of goods, with narrow Head-Office selected* choices in each category, and no room for goods from small, independent manufacturers or suppliers.

    They are also partly, though not wholly, responsible for hollowing out town-centres, making it hard for the remaining, small businesses to survive. It that does also depend on such matters as tax regimes: in Britain a system called the "Uniform Business Rate" is often singled out as particularly destructive. 

    The only way these emporia help the shopper is providing a single-stop service, but primarily for customers with cars who can buy trolley-loads in one weekly or fortnightly trip.

    Now even they are facing competition, from the likes of Amazon. Schadenfreude? No, because a massive on-line company is even less likely to offer a wide choice; and once it gains a monopoly it can hike the prices and lower the choice and quality of service as much as it likes. 

    I used to know someone who worked for a company making supermarket equipment. When I mentioned the slightly odd-seeming behaviour of some of my local supermarkets, she explained that there are fewer companies than the names above the doors suggest. She also told me that when these places were designed, they were deliberately made unattractive to disabled or elderly shoppers: they wanted only the drive-in, buy lots quickly and drive-away trade.

    +++

    *Head Office selected. Allowing local managers no initiative to stock what they know locals will buy. 

    A common fault, and not just in food shops, but the most extreme I have met was in a branch of Subway, in my Southern English town. It offered a good range of condiments and sauces including mayonnaise, but not salad-cream. Why not? Because, I was told, the entire menu was set in New York... abroad, 3000 miles of ocean away. I remarked that not only was their Head Office wrong in not recognising regional tastes, it even missed the irony that the major salad-cream manufacturer in Britain is Heinz - always an American company!

    I believe the British supermarket, Tesco, came a cropper in the USA by failing to tailor its outlets there properly to American shoppers' habits. 
      May 14, 2020 5:19 PM MDT
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  • 113301
    Thank you for your detailed thoughtful and very informative analysis Durdle. When I was a kid we did the store to store to store to store shopping. For general merchandise like tools or appliances or auto items or furniture and sometimes clothes we went to SEARS. On Saturdays my dad (mom didn't like to shop so daddy took that job over) younger sister and I did our shopping. We'd start out at the grocery store buying things like papergoods or detergents and cereals and canned goods. The usual basics. Then we'd go to the fruits and vegetables emporium which was glorified large stand. Then we'd go to the butcher. Sometimes we'd go to the bakery for a treat. In those days we had a "milkman" who delivered milk eggs butter cream. We had a standing order and mom would leave the door to the utility room (adjacent to the kitchen) unlocked for him. We'd leave the empty milk bottles there for him to pick up and leave our order. That's just how it was in those days. Oh. There was a roving bakery truck....HELMS...that would come by several times a week. Mom was particularly enamored of the Cream Puffs and Chocolate Eclairs. That's how everyone shopped. Now we go to WALMART or COSTCO. We do have a SPROUTS which is the "health food" store where we can buy pricey things. Progress? I don't know. It is what it is these days. :)
      May 15, 2020 2:42 AM MDT
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