Are we really too busy to shop for groceries??

[Aurien]

since 2008, in my county area, i cannot count the brick+mortars of all sizes+descriptions that have closed, and, still more are closing. it’s so sad. i can’t tell you how sad. some new businesses are coming. Chik-fil-A recently opened. Costco is planned for next year, i think. not an even exchange.

in my county is a large state university. i never dreamed we would lose nearly every bookstore. unthinkable! even Christian bookstores. i think one remains. not in its former glory. businesses that remain have downsized, offer smaller inventory and services.

I think we've made a lot of choices as a society to get to this point. We want efficiency. We want choice. We want cheap prices. All of these desires or choices have undercut local businesses. Before Walmart, people out here drove an hour to Pueblo to do a lot of their shopping (still do). Walmart killed off many of the local businesses. Now Walmart is trying to compete with online sources like Amazon. The Internet has brought new levels of efficiency into play. This is how capitalism works.

This is a little off topic but...I live in a slowly dying town. Walmart wanted to put a store here a few years ago but faced staunch opposition from a few people who said that it would kill the local businesses. Walmart never did build here and now the local businesses are closing anyway and so people still end up driving to other towns to shop at Walmart. It doesn't help that I live in a poor area and Walmart is the cheapest option for a lot of people.

[temporal1]

since 2008, in my county area, i cannot count the brick+mortars of all sizes+descriptions that have closed, and, still more are closing. it’s so sad. i can’t tell you how sad. some new businesses are coming. Chik-fil-A recently opened. Costco is planned for next year, i think. not an even exchange.

in my county is a large state university. i never dreamed we would lose nearly every bookstore. unthinkable! even Christian bookstores. i think one remains. not in its former glory. businesses that remain have downsized, offer smaller inventory and services.

I think we've made a lot of choices as a society to get to this point. We want efficiency. We want choice. We want cheap prices. All of these desires or choices have undercut local businesses. Before Walmart, people out here drove an hour to Pueblo to do a lot of their shopping (still do). Walmart killed off many of the local businesses. Now Walmart is trying to compete with online sources like Amazon. The Internet has brought new levels of efficiency into play. This is how capitalism works.

Amazon is a big player in closed bookstores. via the internet, of course.
Jeff Bezos has predicted (from memory) that Amazon will eventually go bankrupt, saying, “they all do.” (me, then, thinking of Sears).

on the positive, tho. many people look for and value “walkability” indexes for their communities.
i do. so far, these areas tend to be pricey, whereas when i was young, people largely took walking for granted. even at distances. old pictures sure tell a story about obesity. and, i think, schools would have far fewer social problems if children walked decent distances back+forth. we are built for a lot more exercise than we get.

my brother made me laugh. we were talking about how we walked back+forth to school.
he reminded me - AND, back+forth for LUNCH until junior high (which had a cafeteria).
o.my.goodness. he was right. i laughed so hard remembering, tears came.

very few discipline problems.

AND, we had to walk past that DONUT SHOP every-single-time.
the aroma in the air! - but, for pete’s sake! who had a nickel to buy a donut??!

we had no money for school lunches, either. there were tables for those bringing lunches.

[temporal1]

OP:

Order online. Curbside pickup. Now delivery??

Are we really that busy with life we can't shop for groceries anymore?

First it was Walmart offering curbside pickup. Then Giant Foods. Then Weiss Markets. Now even our local Dutchway is offering curbside pick up. Giant Foods will deliver in our area as well.

Think back a generation or two. You went to the local butcher for meats, the mill for flour, maybe a local market for fruits and vegetables. Depending on the area, you may have visited a market every day for that day's worth of food.

What is this world coming to?

a steve poll:

2018 / .. diet & exercise ..
http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php ... =groffdale
Groffdales mentioned on Page 2.

[Szdfan]

I love Walmart curbside pick up. It's not because I don't have enough time to go grocery shopping, it's because I hate going into Walmart and have few other options in my small town.

When I lived in Germany, the corner grocery store was very much still a thing and my mother went almost every day. The difference from the US is that Europeans have small refrigerators and not as many cars. My town used to have small grocery stores within walking distance in each of the neighborhoods. The car and the ability to drive a distance to a Walmart or other "big box" store killed off the small, independent grocery store.

Our entire society is structured towards efficiency at the cost of other priorities. Grocery curbside pickup and home delivery is more efficient for many of us than going to a store everyday. I think changing this trend means making intentional choices to live differently as much as possible.

Don't you think it also helps you spend less? We storekeepers design our stores to attract impulse buying. With curbside pickup, or delivery, you obviously miss our cool seasonal displays and other lovely customer traps.

It does, actually. Also, my wife can be really picky with what she wants and I’ve gotten the wrong almost-the-same-but-actually-completely-different-so-how-can-you-sleep-at-night-you-philistine thing more than once. Curbside pickup solves that problem and if Walmart substitutes the wrong thing, the wife has the pleasure of ranting to customer service instead of me.

What percentage of your sales do you think are impulse buys?

[Szdfan]

This is a little off topic but...I live in a slowly dying town. Walmart wanted to put a store here a few years ago but faced staunch opposition from a few people who said that it would kill the local businesses. Walmart never did build here and now the local businesses are closing anyway and so people still end up driving to other towns to shop at Walmart. It doesn't help that I live in a poor area and Walmart is the cheapest option for a lot of people.

Yeah...I see those kind of things too. Rural depopulation and poverty are such entrenched and difficult issues that having or not having a Walmart doesn’t solve.

[mike]

What percentage of your sales do you think are impulse buys?

I have never thought about this before, but if you google it, it appears that about 20% of consumer grocery purchases are impulse buys. That would not surprise me at all. And I would guess that a 20% sales decrease would be an extremely severe decline for most stores. How much do you want to bet that the future look of curbside pickup areas will be something like this:

[ohio jones]

I would like to try trackside pickup at the Maeklong market.

[video][/video]

[mike]

since 2008, in my county area, i cannot count the brick+mortars of all sizes+descriptions that have closed, and, still more are closing. it’s so sad. i can’t tell you how sad. some new businesses are coming. Chik-fil-A recently opened. Costco is planned for next year, i think. not an even exchange.

in my county is a large state university. i never dreamed we would lose nearly every bookstore. unthinkable! even Christian bookstores. i think one remains. not in its former glory. businesses that remain have downsized, offer smaller inventory and services.

I think we've made a lot of choices as a society to get to this point. We want efficiency. We want choice. We want cheap prices. All of these desires or choices have undercut local businesses. Before Walmart, people out here drove an hour to Pueblo to do a lot of their shopping (still do). Walmart killed off many of the local businesses. Now Walmart is trying to compete with online sources like Amazon. The Internet has brought new levels of efficiency into play. This is how capitalism works.

This is a little off topic but...I live in a slowly dying town. Walmart wanted to put a store here a few years ago but faced staunch opposition from a few people who said that it would kill the local businesses. Walmart never did build here and now the local businesses are closing anyway and so people still end up driving to other towns to shop at Walmart. It doesn't help that I live in a poor area and Walmart is the cheapest option for a lot of people.

In our area (rural Pennsylvania) Dollar Generals are popping up everywhere. They say that if you see a pile of dirt in the middle of a field, just wait quietly... it's a DG ready to hatch. We are hearing that their goal is to have a store every 5-7 miles, and that appears to be happening. I like their business model and I sure like driving a mile to DG for a small item that I need over 10 miles to Wal-Mart where you have to walk half the day to get what you need. They carry all the easy products, all UPC'ed with low overhead, little to no produce and limited perishables, which leaves room for other neighborhood food stores to coexist alongside. I know of one local market that sold off an acre of its property to DG, and they both seem to do well. In a way they are the rebirth of the local general store. No they are not like the old Mom and Pop's but still they are bringing convenience to rural areas and threatening Wal-Mart's dominance.

[Aurien]

I would like to try trackside pickup at the Maeklong market.

[video][/video]

When you've picked up your groceries you can grab hold of the train and hitch a ride home. Alternatively you could reach out the train windows and grab food as the train speeds by. Quickest shopping trip ever.

[Aurien]

I think we've made a lot of choices as a society to get to this point. We want efficiency. We want choice. We want cheap prices. All of these desires or choices have undercut local businesses. Before Walmart, people out here drove an hour to Pueblo to do a lot of their shopping (still do). Walmart killed off many of the local businesses. Now Walmart is trying to compete with online sources like Amazon. The Internet has brought new levels of efficiency into play. This is how capitalism works.

This is a little off topic but...I live in a slowly dying town. Walmart wanted to put a store here a few years ago but faced staunch opposition from a few people who said that it would kill the local businesses. Walmart never did build here and now the local businesses are closing anyway and so people still end up driving to other towns to shop at Walmart. It doesn't help that I live in a poor area and Walmart is the cheapest option for a lot of people.

In our area (rural Pennsylvania) Dollar Generals are popping up everywhere. They say that if you see a pile of dirt in the middle of a field, just wait quietly... it's a DG ready to hatch. We are hearing that their goal is to have a store every 5-7 miles, and that appears to be happening. I like their business model and I sure like driving a mile to DG for a small item that I need over 10 miles to Wal-Mart where you have to walk half the day to get what you need. They carry all the easy products, all UPC'ed with low overhead, little to no produce and limited perishables, which leaves room for other neighborhood food stores to coexist alongside. I know of one local market that sold off an acre of its property to DG, and they both seem to do well. In a way they are the rebirth of the local general store. No they are not like the old Mom and Pop's but still they are bringing convenience to rural areas and threatening Wal-Mart's dominance.

I live in rural NY and the same thing is happening. Dollar General has inspired many memes.