Trendy Shopping Habits

I play a little game on the weekends. How few stops can I make in order to complete all of my errands? This isn’t an original game. I didn’t invent it. It’s probably called, Being a Human on the Weekend. But I’m noticing a change in how the game is played.  

Years ago, we used to have to go to individual specialty stores to get everything we wanted. Then came big box stores that carried enough of almost everything to allow for one-stop shopping. Lately I’m finding I can’t get what I want at that single, albeit gargantuan store, and it’s back to the shops again.

The cats eat a certain food that’s only sold by Pet Valu. When I need glue for a project it has to be Gorilla Glue, and not everyone carries it. I could get a picture frame at Walmart or even a dollar store, but I want one of better quality, that doesn’t look like every other frame out there, so that’s another stop. Only one store in this city carries an all-natural water flavour enhancer that has been proven by studies I’ve conducted to double my water intake.

I poked around online to see if this shift in my attitude was part of a trend, and it turns out that once again, I’m part of a mass shift in consumer wants and needs. (So much for being an original!) Items number 4 and 10 in this Retail Trends and Predictions 2017 article claim that shoppers no longer want to wander through endless aisles of stuff they don’t need just to find the things they want. Smaller, speciality stores are coming back. It takes just minutes to point and click at something online, so in order to lure people to local stores, retailers have had to make the in-store experience more efficient and enticing. Smaller shops are also more cost-effective to operate. Everything old is new again. Perhaps our little burg of Byron will get its own hardware store once again, where you can buy a hammer without having to first walk by two-dozen aisles of power tools, lumber and patio furniture.