Shopping

Friday, September 22, 2023

Today, my list of to-dos is at the forefront, starting with an electrician. He is due any moment to set up a new outside pole light and repair an outside fixture not working as it should.

Yesterday, there was a surprising amount of rain. I did as little outside as possible.

Had a long lunch with my friend, Julie, and we caught up with each other. Coming home, I stopped at Safeway for a loaf of bread. Its parking lot was full and the store was packed with shoppers. Rainfall in this community is a popular excuse for shopping indoors.

It occurs to me that I’m doing most of my shopping online. That’s so easy! Yesterday in Safeway, while looking for a particular brand of bread and not finding it, I surprised myself by wondering if that or a bread similar is available from Amazon. Who’d a’thought of buying bread online! I’m not quite ready to explore that, but someday might. Lots of happenings start with notions.

I wonder how retail selling might change in the future. It’s been the “American way” to shop among easily available items, select, and find a register to pay. To avert ever-growing thefts, retailers often are making valuable items less easily available, keeping them under lock and key or in windowed cases. Employees will hand those items to customers and perhaps escort buyers to checkstands.

All Home Depot’s locations stock some 30-40 thousand items. These days, nearly every aisle has locked merchandise because of rampant theft. HD instructs employees not to try taking merchandise from a thief, and never to leave the store and chase someone. Those activities are too dangerous. Instead, employees must get the best possible description of the thief, and hopefully, a vehicle license number. Next, a theft will become a police case.

Not-chasing instructions have made thieves bolder and theft losses increase store prices. To respond, merchandisers are moving more toward selling online. And are becoming more efficient at that. So, what may happen to brick-and-mortar shopping experiences?

Dear Friends: Just one of many questions about the futures of everything. Diana