[HN Gopher] People hated shopping carts when they first came out
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People hated shopping carts when they first came out
Author : memorable
Score : 100 points
Date : 2022-05-20 23:44 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| melling wrote:
| People don't like change. Their immediate reaction is often to
| complain.
|
| "We don't like the new logo"
|
| "We don't like the site redesign"
|
| "We don't like Swift because it doesn't have header files"
|
| "What I currently do is good enough for me"
|
| Personally, I now save myself a lot of time by not trying to
| explain to people why they are wrong.
| sschueller wrote:
| Sometimes people are right and companies have to go back having
| wasted millions on crap and hindering progress because they had
| to copy bad ideas from others seeing only the money that is
| being made as a result of marketing and not features or
| usability.
|
| Some examples: Apple's touchbar ESC key or the super low
| profile non-replacable keyboard, vehicles that switches to
| touch screen and capacitive button interfaces for critical
| controls resulting in less safe driving experience, Apple's
| iPhone "your holding it wrong" decorative metal frame, Apple's
| refusal to add NFC or wireless charging for years because of
| the metal back, there are hundreds more.
| notpachet wrote:
| > Some examples: Apple's touchbar ESC key
|
| The number of times I accidentally closed an almost-filled-
| out modal because a few molecules of my finger accidentally
| brushed the escape key on that @#$&* thing...
| xattt wrote:
| One example was QuarkXpress vs InDesign. One was based on
| traditional ways of working, and brought a paradigm shift
| towards true digital publishing concepts.
|
| Not sure what you could do in one and not the other, but you
| sure had a lot of cranky greybeards when their shops had to
| switch, because they had to learn new ways of thinking.
|
| You'd also run into the same situation if you had a young
| whipper-snapper go into a QuarkXpress shop.
| Jenz wrote:
| While this is true, one must not think of this and forget that
| one can dislike something new for other reasons than it being
| new...
|
| I dislike shopping carts simply because they look bad and I
| have no need for them, though I understand they're useful or
| even neccessary for some.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Do you live alone in a city? or do you just not cook for
| yourself very often
| Jenz wrote:
| Both. Which it seems people have a problem with, seeing the
| downvotes. I had a simple point and a personal opinion,
| what is the problem?
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > Personally, I now save myself a lot of time by not trying to
| explain to people why they are wrong.
|
| This is 100% it. Most people don't have the cognitive capacity
| to understand anything that differs meaningfully from the
| status quo. It's just not productive to pretend they do. It's
| no different from talking to a young child and insisting that
| they understand everything at the level adults do.
| gumby wrote:
| Today's resistance to self checkout reminds me of the resistance
| to these shopping carts and before that the resistance to
| supermarkets ("why do I have to go fetch my purchases myself?" "I
| miss the conversation with the shopkeeper" were common examples
| of complaints that have reappeared in the anti-self-checkout
| complaints).
| astrange wrote:
| The strange thing about self checkout at my nearest store is
| that the store is 24 hours, but they close self checkout at
| night, which is also when they have no staff, so the only way
| to use the store is to walk all over and drag the manager back
| to open a checkout.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Some people will just resist any change and complain for the
| most petty reasons
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| And sometimes change actually sucks.
| gumby wrote:
| My grandmother used to laugh about a famous person-on-the-
| street interview about Australia going metric: one woman
| complained, "why can't they just wait until all us old people
| die". It was her go-to comment about anyone complaining about
| change, and she found it funnier the older she got.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I like talking to people in the checkout line. The lady who
| checked me out today grew up in the same tiny town my parents
| retired to, 7 hours from here. Just learned that today. Plus,
| the UX of self checkout systems generally sucks to the extent
| that it makes me angry when I use it, and I'd rather feel
| better at the end of a transaction than worse.
| guptaneil wrote:
| To be fair in this case, self-service is objectively worse than
| having the shopkeeper grab everything you want. The popularity
| of curb-side pickup of your grocery order shows how nice that
| model used to be, but self-service is more scalable and
| cheaper. The same is true when it comes to paying. It's nicer
| to have someone else ring you up than you have to learn to do
| it yourself.
|
| I think a better comparison would be people complaining about
| frictionless checkout (where you just walk out like Amazon
| grocery stores) in the same way as shopping carts, which is
| actually a whole new and better experience but can feel so
| weird that people feel uncomfortable about it.
|
| (disclaimer: I've never actually tried an Amazon Go store but I
| do avoid self-checkout whenever I have fruits/veggies to check
| out)
| danaris wrote:
| > self-service is objectively worse than having the
| shopkeeper grab everything you want.
|
| This makes some assumptions.
|
| Off the top of my head:
|
| 1) The shopkeeper is always available to grab _your_
| purchases without a wait. 2) You already know exactly which
| products you want, and /or there aren't different versions of
| products to select between. 3) The shopkeeper is trustworthy
| enough to get you the actual products you want. 4) You aren't
| a person that the shopkeeper is going to discriminate
| against.
|
| There are lots of good reasons to want to pick out your own
| groceries.
| jwilk wrote:
| I'll add:
|
| * You're able to speak loud and clear.
|
| * You can speak the same language as the shopkeeper.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Whenever I go get my own groceries, I can buy my lunches in
| advance for the next week as well if the expiration dates
| for my usual lunches are long enough. But whenever I've
| ordered my groceries delivered, I've had to assume that the
| expiration dates last for about a week.
|
| There's definitely advantages to someone picking out your
| groceries for you, but also some drawbacks.
| bombcar wrote:
| It works significantly better when there isn't any real
| choice - you have creamy vs chunky peanut butter instead of
| forty different brands thereof.
|
| Give me whole milk is easier and simpler than "give me this
| particular brand of whole milk".
| danaris wrote:
| Which is great when _your needs are the default needs_.
|
| When you have needs--or even just desires--that aren't
| The One Available Product, suddenly you're SOL. Sometimes
| with grievous health consequences.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > To be fair in this case, self-service is objectively worse
| than having the shopkeeper grab everything you want.
|
| even this depends on the type of shopper you are. if I'm
| buying a bunch of pasta, curbside pickup is great, and
| delivery is even better. but if I'm buying an ny strip, I
| want to see all the choices and pick the one that looks best.
| similar for fruits and vegetables, I don't trust the
| professional shopper to evaluate ripeness on my behalf. some
| things you just have to do yourself.
| [deleted]
| donarb wrote:
| And the common response to self checkout is that you are
| putting a checker out of work. Never mind the fact that most of
| the shelves are not stocked by store employees, but by
| distributors. A grocery store is basically a place where the
| store rents out shelf space to the highest bidder.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > Never mind the fact that most of the shelves are not
| stocked by store employees, but by distributors.
|
| This is new to me. Do you just mean that the placement is
| decided by distributors? I'm pretty sure I have seen store
| employees putting stuff on the shelves from time to time at
| my local supermarket.
| caw wrote:
| I believe this only applies to a few sections--soda, chips,
| and magazines(?). Your produce and canned food aisles are
| stocked by the store employees, though the planograms for
| the shelving layout comes from corporate, sized for the
| store's footprint. There may be some distributor input into
| those, such as cereal, but I've never seen those processes,
| only the resulting stock plan.
| jjulius wrote:
| This is correct. In many areas, alcohol is also stocked
| by distributors. But the rest of the grocery store is
| stocked by store employees.
| bombcar wrote:
| This also only applies to some stores - not all. You can
| often tell by the uniform the sticker is wearing.
|
| Smaller stores and chains are often stocked by the store
| itself, even if Coke delivered the pallet.
| gumby wrote:
| Distributors for the big food companies (Coca-Cola,
| Pepsi/Frito-Lay, etc) essentially rent and maintain a
| section of shelving and then keep it full and decide
| themselves on the distribution of products that appear.
| Smaller manufacturers sell their product wholesale to the
| stores who then stock them in the normal fashion.
|
| The end caps of isles are sold to the highest bidder,
| typically by the week; if that bidder is coca-cola they
| manage that display as well, subject to the constraints of
| the store.
|
| One of the innovations of Frys Electronics was to try to
| run their shops that way, as they started by selling serial
| cables and other computer supplies in their family's
| grocery chain. It only partially worked as the vendors
| weren't really equipped to do this, the way the food
| companies are.
| alar44 wrote:
| No, vendors have a few shelves, it's not at all like you say.
| Source: have seen employees stocking the vast majority of
| shelves.
| robonerd wrote:
| My response to self-checkout is that it only works properly
| 50% of the time, and the other half I have to stand around
| looking befuddled before an employee waddles over to clear
| the error. Cashiers are evidently better at checkout than I
| am, and their labor is free-to-me, so self-checkout just
| seems like a raw deal with no upsides.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I don't see why it has to be one way or the other. aside
| from whole foods JWO (which is great!), I have yet to see a
| single grocery store that lacks checkout lanes. if you like
| that service, you're in luck! it's available pretty much
| everywhere. but let's have self-checkout as an option too.
| nine times out of ten, I'll be walking out the door with my
| groceries while you're still waiting in line.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I think you might just have a shitty grocery store... 50%
| is an absurd failure rate. I think the failure rate I've
| seen is closer to 1%, and I'm a pretty heavy self checkout
| user across pharmacies and grocery stores, in both sf and
| ny
| Markoff wrote:
| well, if I am saving supermarket money on shopkeepers then
| supermarket also needs to expect I will also try to save some
| money on "mistakes" while using self checkout, two can play
| this game, especially considering how much money shopkeepers
| scammed me, because they always make "mistake" which is
| beneficial only to shop (OK, to be fair, not always, "only" in
| 95-98% cases, I can't even remember how many times they scammed
| me with wrong price(tag)s or wrong item (it's almost every
| other or every third purchase, so I check receipt every single
| time), but I remember very well once in a many years guy made
| mistake and charged me cheaper bread, that was like winning the
| lotto)
| bombcar wrote:
| When Target was just starting to expand as Super Target in my
| area they somehow had the barcode for turkey ringing up as 25
| cents _total_ instead of per pound. I tried to explain to the
| cashier that it had to be wrong and they started to get mad
| at me, so I gave up and took my 25 cent turkey.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Self-checkout machines are simply bad though. All the hoops
| they make you jump through to prevent theft makes for a
| terrible experience. Having to put everything on the damn
| scale, even if it's the only thing you're buying, sucks, and
| even still it always yells at you, "UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE
| BAGGING AREA!". And there's always a dozen prompts you have to
| click through before you can pay.
|
| Home Depot gets it right. They have a large table with a
| handheld wireless scanner, a receipt printer, a card payment
| terminal, and a touch screen that you don't need to interact
| with at all. All you have to do is start scanning and tap your
| card when you're done.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Wal Mart gets it perfect with Wal Mart Pay too.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| What is Wal-Mart Pay? In Canada Wal-Mart's self-checkouts
| are as bad as the rest. Actually, worse, because they force
| you to walk through this longaze before you can even get to
| the machines.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| ("longaze" should be "long maze".)
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Do you really find that to be a hurdle? The first time I used
| one, the scale warning surprised me. But it's trivial to
| avoid, and now self checkout feels super efficient to me
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| I'm tall, and the scales are nearly at floor level. And if
| I walk into a grocery store and buy a single bag of milk
| (which doesn't need another bag because it is a bag so why
| would I put it in the bagging area?), having to stoop down
| to put it on the scale is an inconvenience I'd rather
| avoid. Some stores let you select "no bag" every time and
| let you proceed to payment, but most don't. Being treated
| with so much suspicion is also not pleasant.
|
| My solution is to avoid self-checkout at stores with crappy
| machines, or avoid those stores altogether. If Home Depot
| can do good self-checkout, why can't everyone else? That's
| the primary reason I frequent HD over Lowe's.
| louracryft wrote:
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Many of the 'self-checkout' machines are _really bad_ at what
| they do. Put the items on a scale as you scan them, but don
| 't put your own bag on the scale ... so you can bag the item
| after it's scanned, saving repeating that motion for each
| item ... or it will bitch at you. Repeatedly. (And the
| 'watchperson' comes over sounding accusatory.)
|
| The store can damn well afford to pay someone to scan and bag
| the items, while I do the loyalty-card, payment-card cha-cha.
| The store isn't paying me to do all this shit.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| The only time I personally hate the shopping cart experience is
| when there are no areas to deposit them in the parking lot.
| Brookshires is a store that has no cart-deposit locations in the
| lot, because they still believe that the best way to handle
| customers is to have their employees load up your car personally.
| The problem is that the throughput of people at checkout is
| faster than the car loaders, and so you have an imbalance that
| either requires people to drag their carts all the way back to
| the place they got them OR to just leave them in the parking lot.
| Most people are going to choose option B.
| cronix wrote:
| I wonder if there is actually evidence that people buy more with
| a cart vs hand held basket, _overall_. Obviously they likely do
| _for that trip_. It seems to me that if I only use a hand held
| basket, I 'm making more trips to the store for my family of 4.
| Probably daily if not every other day. If I use a cart and
| purchase a lot, I go to the store less. But, did I actually
| purchase more or less food in a months duration? I'd bet it's
| about the same. It's not like I'm literally eating more depending
| on the method of procurement. I eat about the same, every day.
| But I would be spending more time standing in lines and wasting
| more gas by using a basket unless the market was within walking
| distance and I chose to walk over drive. Personally I don't
| really like going to shop for anything and buy as much as I can,
| whether it's food or clothes or anything else.
|
| It seems proximity to the store and the number of people you're
| routinely buying food for would be the bigger predictors of who
| would use a cart over a basket, as well as lifestyle. I mean,
| some people choose to drive even if they live next door to the
| market.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| I generally shop once a week using a cart, and then only do
| small trips in between using a basket if I forgot something. I
| would definitely buy MORE if I only did daily shopping with a
| basket, because I would be exposed to the risk of impulse
| buying 5-7 times as much, simply because I would be walking the
| aisles more often.
| dmurray wrote:
| People probably consume about the same, but their other trips
| could be to different stores. You want someone to do all their
| shopping in your store!
|
| If there's really no competition nearby, you won't be the first
| to invest in new technology like shopping carts.
| hackernewds wrote:
| It seems more natural that people would buy more stuff since
| now they can carry more stuff. It's impractical to carry as
| many normal shopping carts items, due to their weight, in a
| hand basket. One needs only a trip to Costco (wholesale bulk
| purchase store in the US) to see the average shopping cart
| monkeybutton wrote:
| I feel like people wouldn't buy as much liquids (soda etc.)
| without a shopping cart. Tea, coffee, cocoa powder are all
| small and light in comparison, and milk was delivered.
| rglullis wrote:
| They buy more and they _waste_ more. US /Canada are leaders in
| food waste.
| [deleted]
| telesilla wrote:
| I purposely don't pick up a basket, let alone a cart, when
| shopping but bring my own bag or better yet, go without out if
| I'm just getting something quick. It's very easy to come out
| _every time_ with food you don 't need but the supermarket has
| placed so perfectly to tempt you. Yes I get strange looks laden
| with bread and bananas and whathaveyou cradled in my arms but
| it's a proven money saver when I can't easily pick up that
| delicious box of somethings as well as keep the necessities.
| rmason wrote:
| If I run out of something mid-week I will go to a convenience
| store. It was always a bit awkward to approach the counter with
| my arms full. Now a local Lansing chain has added plastic
| baskets at the door. That single thing has made me chose that
| chain over its rivals.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I usually zig-zag across the whole store, and if I have a
| basket, i usually don't buy any sodas, because they're heavy, I
| say "i'll pick them up at the end of the zig-zagging", and then
| don't because I'm already at the cash register, and they're
| "far away".
|
| With the cart, I just put them in when I pass by them.
| golergka wrote:
| > If I use a cart and purchase a lot, I go to the store less.
|
| Even that is already a win for the store -- you're spending the
| same amount money in total, while spending less of cashier's
| time and other store's resources.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I'd be interested to know too. My guess is that you're right
| that people would shop more often, but I think they'd focus on
| the essential goods.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Maybe it boosts sales of non-food items.
|
| If your hand cart gets full of groceries, you might not pick up
| other stuff on that trip, like light bulbs, ballpoint pens, a
| potted plant, or a toy for your kid.
|
| After you've left the grocery store, you still need those
| things. So you go to the hardware store, office supply store,
| nursery, or toy store because that's where you prefer to buy
| that stuff if you're making a separate trip anyway.
|
| Grocery stores get those purchases because of convenience. Take
| away the convenience and they might lose the purchases.
| Izkata wrote:
| This is it.
|
| I walk to the grocery store and used to use a basket,
| carrying food home. Non-food was delivered by Amazon.
|
| Then near the end of 2020 when so many trips per week was
| getting to be too much a hassle, I bought a personal cart
| that I bring to the store with me. Now Amazon is more of a
| hassle for plenty of non-food items, because it's so trivial
| to add it to the cart, so I've been getting less online and
| more from the store.
| hemreldop wrote:
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| One big trip is less overhead for the store, so if you consume
| the same amount, it's better for the store that you only come
| once.
|
| Not to mention that if you have a big trolley, you're going to
| fill it and buy more, whether you need it or not
| ttGpN5Nde3pK wrote:
| Not a fan of shopping carts in general. But what I really can't
| stand is when I go to a store and they have more large carts than
| could ever possibly fit in the store at once, yet very few of the
| small carts, and usually no baskets. I imagine this is to entice
| you to use a large cart -> buy more shit.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I still hate shopping carts. But they have nothing on the new
| inventory picker racks that employees are required to push around
| the store all day.
|
| Perhaps its just my region exploding in population, but if I
| don't go to the grocery store at ridiculous hours (i.e. 6am on
| the dot this morning), it takes me upwards of 30 minutes to
| navigate this new chaotic mess.
| alar44 wrote:
| platz wrote:
| what region
| Fargoan wrote:
| Still do
| degun wrote:
| We're not exactly loving them now either.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| My city banned plastic bags. I now prefer a basket because it's a
| better gauge of what I can carry in my 2 tote bags, which is now
| a concern.
| jobigoud wrote:
| > it's a better gauge of what I can carry in my 2 tote bags
|
| Why not use the tote bags directly instead of the basket? This
| way it calibrates for size but also weight & resistance. This
| also gets you into a habit of having your bag deployed _before_
| you start shopping so less chance to forget it and have to buy
| another one.
|
| I shop with a single bag sized for my ride back, even the
| baskets are way too large.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Our local grocery stores don't have baskets anymore because
| they kept getting stolen.
| parenthesis wrote:
| The real question is: do they ever clean the handles?
| jobigoud wrote:
| Face masks are no longer necessary where I live but the grocery
| stores still have the hand sanitizer gel at the entrance that
| most people use. I hope this stays up.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Nathaniel goes shopping! Again. And again. And again.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/profiles/nathaniel-meyersohn
| bowsamic wrote:
| Here in Germany, Lidl and Aldi don't even have baskets anymore.
| At my local Lidl the security guard won't let you in unless you
| have a cart, which you need a 1 euro coin to get...
| carrionpigeon wrote:
| The main reason I "[hate] shopping carts" is that the wheels seem
| to invariably be defective. I remember reading in the late 90s /
| early 2000s (the era of 'Walmart is taking over' articles) that
| this was deliberate. Carts with misaligned wheels that don't run
| straight force customers to slow down and spend more time moving
| from aisle to aisle. No idea if actually true, though.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Still awaiting for the first real hard-hitting journalistic
| article ... from CNN.
| asperous wrote:
| This comment section is another reason why Hacker News is not
| like real life :) Shopping carts are wildly popular where I live.
|
| I wonder if shopping carts became popular alongside the rise of
| the car, thus you were more likely to get a "cars worth of
| groceries." Another innovation in the early 20th century was the
| rise of bare-bones, almost-at-cost grocers outside of town that
| you had to drive to which during the Great Depression was were
| people were starting to go more often, instead of the local
| market.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Baskets as aristocratic, culture never ceases to amaze.
| noarbitration wrote:
| SF. Family of three. Not on a budget.
|
| Our current setup I find quite relaxing.
|
| * Order groceries delivered once every 2 weeks. Basically a
| reorder of previous order with some alterations - 10 minutes
| effort.
|
| * Top up at local independent grocery nearly every day. Sometimes
| twice a day (1.5 blocks away). 1-10 items. Easy walk.
|
| * Order takeout or restaurant 1-2 times per week
|
| I really hate trolleys, lines and hunting for items at big
| stores.
| dagurp wrote:
| Men not wanting to use carts fearing that it would make then look
| weak sounds plausible but the reason they gave for women sounds
| strange to me.
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| It's almost like CNN isn't very credible.
| 988747 wrote:
| I hate them to this day. They often are not easy to drive, their
| wheels tend to block, and navigating a supermarket full of people
| pushing those carts is a nightmare. I switched to doing grocery
| shopping online because of that.
| bombcar wrote:
| Even Walmart has begun to have "half sized" carts which are
| much more manageable - especially as compared to the double-
| wide SUVs you find at Costco.
|
| I wonder if someone could correlate shopping cart size to
| average purchase size.
| rabuse wrote:
| I always feel so dwarfed when I push a Costco cart. They're
| massive.
| bombcar wrote:
| They're built with two _large_ child seats side by side -
| the only thing I've ever seen come close to competing is
| the large lumber carts at Menards or similar.
| brianwawok wrote:
| With three kids they are just perfect! Plus who goes to
| Costco for 5 things, the fun is in the mountain of stuff...
| danaris wrote:
| The shopping carts in Europe tend to have all four wheels able
| to swivel 360deg, which makes them vastly easier to maneuver.
| (We call them "Euro-carts" when we're able to find a place that
| has them here in the US.)
|
| My understanding is that grocery stores deliberately chose to
| use inferior carts in order to make them less attractive to
| steal, or something like that. I would really like to see them
| re-evaluate that decision.
| throwaway742 wrote:
| I find those "Euro-carts" much more difficult to maneuver. In
| my experience it is difficult to to turn them without any
| fixed pivot point. They seem to just want to keep going in
| whatever direction they are going. Maybe I am just an idiot.
| Is there some sort of trick to controlling them?
| quesera wrote:
| For me, the trick is to _guide_ like a mouse, not _steer_
| like a car.
|
| The only place around me that has 4x360deg wheels is IKEA
| (i.e. occasional-not-frequent destination), but I prefer
| them generally to the standard-issue sort.
| zajio1am wrote:
| I usually just park a cart in one place in the supermarket and
| then carry things to it. If a supermarket is big, then just
| park the cart consecutively on several places.
| krallja wrote:
| I can never leave carts unattended, because the store
| employees think it's abandoned and whisk it away to the
| restock area. It's happened multiple times to me.
| tokumei wrote:
| Never liked carts either. I can fit everything I need in a
| basket or in my hands. I don't know why but it gives me very
| unpleasant feelings thinking about spending an hour at a
| grocery store with a completely filled cart.
| paganel wrote:
| I personally still prefer a shopping basket to a shopping cart,
| it "allows" me to buy less stuff, so less money spent. It's also
| nice that with less stuff bought you can take the tram or even
| take a walk on your way home afterwards, no need for a car-ride.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Do you not cook for yourself very frequently? Are you single or
| just don't have kids?
|
| I seriously don't see how people who cook frequently for more
| than just 1 person get by without a cart without considerable
| inconvenience.
| gernb wrote:
| Think most of the world shops without carts. They just go
| more frequently and probably live in a situation that makes
| that easier. (public transportation where there's a grocery
| store at most every stations ... Japan or nearby ... most of
| Europe)
| numlock86 wrote:
| You just shop on a daily basis. -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| I did this for a few months right after work, which was in
| walking range. Eventually I went back to "shopping big" once
| every week after I moved and switched my employer, though.
| But it's doable.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > You just shop on a daily basis. -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| Maybe you walk to the shops if they are close enough?
|
| If not, that sounds wasteful.
|
| Personally I try to spend as little time in the store as
| possible, so when I am in there I'll take extra of whatever
| keeps just so that I don't have to be in the store again
| any time soon. Better to spend an extra 5m grabbing
| everything for the next week than to come in again in two
| days time.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| I used to shop on a daily basis. Lately, though, I cannot
| know that food I want will be available on a daily basis,
| so I buy in bulk when it is available. This week diet soda
| is not on the shelves, but at least jumbo eggs are, and
| that's rare. I only have this problem on the west coast, so
| I suspect it's a local distribution issue; I'm looking
| forward to moving back to the east coast, where groceries
| are more plentiful.
| randallsquared wrote:
| Things randomly not being available really underwent a
| step change that hasn't been reversed in the period since
| 2020. The best solution to that which I found, in NYC,
| was to order as much as possible through Amazon Fresh
| (really Prime Now was better, but for whatever reason
| they killed it in favor of the worse version). The
| benefit of that is that it only takes a moment to check
| if things are in stock, and if they're not in stock, it
| just won't let me order them. If they are in stock, I
| bulk order (best example is, as you said, diet soda).
|
| Until I moved out of Manhattan recently, the absolute
| best shopping experience was Gorillas, which had the "not
| available in the app if it's not available in real life"
| experience of Fresh, but also delivery in near real-time.
| I have started meals, found that I was missing an
| ingredient, and ordered it through Gorillas with no
| disruption to the meal prep time.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| I haven't spent much time on the West Coast, but this
| surprises me. California is the real "Garden State" in
| terms of produce production. Can other people verify this
| or offer a theory why this would be the case?
| astrange wrote:
| Groceries aren't that good in NYC because they won't
| allow enough warehouses to be built; IIRC this leads to
| produce being older and sometimes spoiled in stores.
|
| Other places on the east coast do have better groceries
| than NorCal and proximity to farms doesn't seem to matter
| that much. Which makes sense; "eating local" and "farm to
| table" are not actually real things, wouldn't be good for
| the environment if they were, and are mostly products of
| green meme boomers' wishful thinking.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Grass is greener on the other side?
|
| The bountiful produce production is mostly more
| noticeable in SoCal/central valley than in SF.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| ah yes, the considerable inconvenience part of my comment.
|
| e: I know that a lot of people do this (often because they
| don't own cars), but having lived in cities my whole life
| and done both approaches at various times, the infrequent
| large shipping trip is much faster when amortized over two
| weeks.
|
| and for those saying all my produce is going to be spoiled
| or I must just be eating processed foods... absolutely not.
| atoav wrote:
| It also depends on where you live. For me going to the
| supermarket means walking 60 meters to the next one
| across the street. Except for when I lived on the
| countryside I never lived anywhere where going to the
| supermarket by car would have been faster than just
| walking there.
|
| Now if you walk there, all the stuff that you _can_ buy
| is the stuff that you can carry. What I can carry is less
| than fits into a shopping cart, so I tend not to use a
| shopping cart, because I can feel on my shoulder what I
| am willing to carry home. If I 'd take the car I'd have
| to find a parking lot when returning - and dependend on
| which one I find I might have to carry stuff anyways.
|
| I guess european cities are very different to US cities
| in that regard.
| I-M-S wrote:
| Do you live in a suburban environment? Because where I
| live it's not unusual to pass the grocery store every day
| while walking back home and buy groceries for the day.
| It's only for the big shopping trip on the weekends that
| I use the trolley (and even then the trip is done on
| foot).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Why do you have the big shopping trip on the weekends?
|
| I have never lived in a suburb in my life, I am maybe 2
| minutes walking from a small grocer and 5 from a larger.
| Still definitely save time (and money) by shopping big
| biweekly at the large grocer.
| I-M-S wrote:
| My spouse works regular hours and it's easier to carry
| stuff with two people.
|
| You are probably right about saving money by buying in
| bulk. Unfortunately then storage becomes a problem (we
| live in a small space).
| pessimizer wrote:
| > 2 minutes walking from a small grocer and 5 from a
| larger
|
| I'm not five minutes from my own front door i.e. if I
| decide to go grocery shopping, the process of leaving my
| apartment takes at least five minutes.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I agree, this seems to be bolstering my own point though.
| intsunny wrote:
| > ah yes, the considerable inconvenience part of my
| comment.
|
| Maybe in suburbia. In cities without insane rents and
| healthy work/life balances (IE: not NYC), there are often
| many grocery stores that make regular grocery shopping
| quite easy. (And rather fresh.)
|
| Also regular grocery shopping means that people aren't
| loading up carts with 40+ items and in turn need 10
| minutes to check out.
|
| Grocery shopping becomes a non-item and promotes
| healthier inside cooking.
| alar44 wrote:
| This is why I started using instacart. I'd go to the
| grocery store a couple times a week for a handful of
| items, but would have to wait in line for 20 minutes
| while people checked out a mountain of stuff.
|
| Haven't been to a grocery store in over 2 years.
| xeromal wrote:
| It's easy to hate on Amazon these days, but there's an
| Amazon grocery store near me that has buggies with a
| bunch of tech on them. I throw all my items in the buggy
| and I push it out the store and receive an emailed
| receipt. I don't have to wait in line. I like instacart
| too, but occasionally I just want to browse so I can
| muster up some recipes in my head.
| doktorhladnjak wrote:
| I live near one of these too. The tech is nice but the
| grocery quality is terrible. Never have I had so much
| food go bad before the date printed on the package.
| xeromal wrote:
| I cook pretty fast when I buy so I haven't noticed.
| pessimizer wrote:
| 10 minutes to check out every two weeks compared to 14
| separate shopping trips that take 5 minutes each to check
| out (and 10-30 minutes to travel and from the market each
| visit in either case) isn't significant.
|
| In suburbia it would be the most convenient, because
| suburbanites drive everywhere anyway. If your market is
| at the end of your block, it's still going to take you 15
| minutes to get there and back in the best case.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I have never ever lived in a suburb and what I am saying
| is still true. It is simple economies of scale in
| relation to checking out time, if you go every day you
| are going to be spending more time than I do amortized
| over two weeks.
| sokoloff wrote:
| We shop weekly (taking about an hour from leaving the
| house to returning, less when we frequently manage to
| attach it to a trip where we're already out).
|
| Working from home, there's obviously no grocery store for
| me to pass by on my commute, so daily shopping would be
| 30 minutes a day (45 if I walked it) instead of 60
| minutes once a week. That's about the same as adding back
| my entire pre-COVID commute time. I'll stick to weekly
| and spend the extra 2 hours per week doing something
| else.
| jen20 wrote:
| The inconvenience is having to decide up front what you
| might want to eat for a week, not shopping every day.
| goosedragons wrote:
| It really depends where you live. In some place like the
| US suburbs where the nearest grocery store is a 10+ min
| drive away yeah it can be a considerable inconvenience.
| But when you live in a city centre and it's a couple min
| detour from your walk home it's not a big deal. You can
| have fresher produce, fresh meat, breads that don't need
| to be shelf stable for a week, etc. It doesn't have to be
| inconvenient and it can bring a lot of advantages.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I have only ever lived in city centers, it is still
| faster to buy in bulk. I am vegan so maybe I am not
| appropriately weighting the fresh meat concerns, most of
| the stuff I buy does not spoil as easily.
| Jensson wrote:
| Don't you buy bread? Bread spoils in a few days unless
| you put a lot of shit in it and every day stored makes it
| taste worse. Or even most fruits and vegetables, they
| taste significantly worse after a week.
|
| People who shops just once a week can't value the
| freshness of what they eat at all. Or they just eat
| dry/frozen/industrial treated wares that don't spoil
| easily, but eating fresh really tastes a lot better.
| mantas wrote:
| Bake your own? Supermarket bread is crap anyway. Good rye
| bread stays good in paper wrapping in a fridge for a
| looong time.
| Jensson wrote:
| > Supermarket bread is crap anyway
|
| Not in Europe. Maybe the reason it is crap in USA is
| because people don't shop daily and hence they don't buy
| good bread there? If you optimize bread to taste good
| after a week instead of tasting good after a day then I
| can see why American brands put so much sugar in their
| breads.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| That really depends on the country, even in Europe.
|
| Some are good, some are bad. Italy, France, Spain,
| Portugal, Greece have usually pretty good bread in your
| typical supermarket. Northern countries tend to fare
| worse in my experience.
| mantas wrote:
| I am 100% born and raised euro :) mainstream bread is
| still crap. Take a look at bread labels. Maybe our bread
| is not as bad as US, but there's tons of sugar and other
| additives. And raising procedures are cutting corners.
|
| Sometimes I buy high quality bread from a small bakery.
| Tastes great and stays great. I find this applies to rye
| bread only. White bread doesn't seem to work this way.
| astrange wrote:
| This "bad US supermarket bread" doesn't exist in
| California. We have even surpassed whole wheat and only
| eat sprouted seed breads and something that claims to be
| keto bread somehow.
|
| It does exist in Japan. You may think they're healthy but
| they eat the worst wheat products imaginable. Even white
| bread isn't white enough for them; they cut the crusts
| off their 711 sandwiches and have whiter than white meat
| buns.
| Jensson wrote:
| I look at the labels, the only ingredients marked on the
| bread I buy is wheat flour and salt. There are many
| brands with more stuff in them, sure, but not all are
| like that. Doesn't last very long though.
| mantas wrote:
| Wheat bread may be the issue. Rye bread lasts much much
| longer.
| danaris wrote:
| I don't eat bread fast enough for a full loaf (heck, even
| a half) that spoils in a few days to be worth paying
| money for.
|
| Heidelberg bread is pretty reliably decent quality,
| nearly always stays good for the amount of time it takes
| me to eat a full loaf, and is made with good ingredients.
| gkop wrote:
| Not even a half? Then, this won't be useful for you:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31013326
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Okay, the bread point is true - I will grant you that. I
| happen to live very close to a small market but wouldn't
| buy anything other than bread there because they
| certainly charge for the convenience. You can also bag
| and freeze bread, but there is a decrease in quality.
|
| Just disagree on vegetables, I am a massive veggie lover
| and the difference is not nearly as much as you are
| making it out to be. I don't each much processed food.
|
| I also don't eat animal products, which might be
| influencing my opinion since I perceive those as fast to
| spoil.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Do you freeze your vegetables?
|
| Fruit, vegetables and bread will spoil in a few days.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I typically use a fridge, so my vegetables do not spoil
| in a few days. I'm assuming you are talking about storing
| without a fridge because vegetables do not spoil after a
| few days in the fridge.
| egypturnash wrote:
| It's not terribly inconvenient if the store is in walking
| distance. Especially if work's in walking distance and
| the store's on your way home from work. Or if you work
| from home. I've been in this situation too, it's _really
| nice_. Hit up the store a couple of times a week, get
| what you need.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| it's probably to the tune of a few hours a week or so of
| your time, you value that as you want.
| robonerd wrote:
| If you shop several times a week, each shopping trip is
| short. It'll all add up to _maybe_ an hour a week, not
| several hours.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| if it's a 5 minute walk, it already adds up to an hour
| before you count the multiplied checkout, shopping, etc.
| time.
| robonerd wrote:
| The walk doesn't count because it's two blocks away and I
| walk anyway around regardless of whether I'm grocery
| shopping, but sure, throw in 3x5 minutes walking for 3
| grocery store trips a week (I average 1 or 2 a week, but
| whatever.)
|
| To that 3x5 minutes of walking to and from the store, add
| 3x10 minutes for walking around the aisles picking food
| off the shelf, and another 3x5 minutes for checkout. That
| adds up to an hour a week. That's far short of "a few"
| hours.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| 5 minute walk to the store means 10 round trip, let's say
| 25 total with your other numbers (although I think your
| aisles estimate is an overestimate given it should scale
| by how much stuff you are getting), then multiplying by
| 14 as the person I was replying to says they go daily and
| I go biweekly and I save ~5 hours per biweekly large trip
| I go on.
| Jensson wrote:
| A walk is valuable in itself though, if you don't walk to
| the store you have to walk somewhere else to get that
| exercise. Hence I tend to say that walking is free while
| driving costs time, at least until you fill your need to
| move.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Fair enough.
| robonerd wrote:
| Five minutes was for the round trip, but if you want a 10
| minute round trip you still fall well short of two hours
| a week. I think you're overestimating walk times though,
| a casual stroll for 5 minutes gets you a quarter of a
| mile. In the city where I live there are three grocery
| stores within a quarter mile of me. The closest is a
| tenth of a mile.
|
| Upthread you did respond to somebody saying daily, but
| the comment I responded to was itself a response to
| somebody saying _" Hit up the store a couple of times a
| week, get what you need."_ To which you responded that it
| would take hours. I interpret "a couple of times a week"
| to mean every other day, or about 3 times a week.
| Markoff wrote:
| that seems horribly inefficient considering wasted time on
| the way to/from shop and time spent in queue waiting at
| checkout, so instead of doing this 1-2x a week you spend
| like 3 times more time on these fixed items and let's
| ignore the promotions especially for bigger packages/bulk
| purchases
|
| I don't think it's really doable unless you are single and
| you have big chain right on the way from work, otherwise
| small shops in convenient location next to your house will
| charge you premium compared to big discount chains
| rglullis wrote:
| Because urban planning in North America is totally broken:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Sorry, but there is no world in which shopping at the
| grocer every day is more convenient than shopping once
| every 1.5 or even 2 weeks or so.
|
| I live in a dense city and very close to grocery stores,
| this is still true.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| It depends on how you measure convenience.
|
| The madhouse of a Costco or supermarkets on a weekend is
| time efficient, but it's stressful.
|
| A quiet and daily shopping experience can be a pleasant
| way to unwind after a day of work.
| jjulius wrote:
| >Sorry, but there is no world in which shopping at the
| grocer every day is more convenient than shopping once
| every 1.5 or even 2 weeks or so.
|
| _For you_.
|
| I keep seeing your replies throughout this chain and I
| can't help but notice that you seem to be astounded by
| differences in what ultimately amounts to personal
| preference. What might be convenient shopping for you may
| not be convenient shopping for others. Lifestyle, locale,
| general eating habits and personal taste, among other
| things, are significant contributing factors to these
| differences.
| acheron wrote:
| Everyone replying to him is doing the same thing.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yes, I am saying that if you cook frequently for
| yourself, it takes more time to shop every day.
|
| Some people enjoy going on walks every day, some people
| order lots of take out, etc. All of those are acceptable.
| I am only largely disagreeing with the people who claim
| that somehow these two alternatives take a comparable
| amount of time (and the people suggesting that I must
| have no taste in vegetables or live in suburbia).
| prmoustache wrote:
| > Yes, I am saying that if you cook frequently for
| yourself, it takes more time to shop every day.
|
| I don't think there is a single rule. I depends entirely
| which day/hour you do the shopping and where. When I
| lived in Switzerland supermarkets were closed from
| saturday at 5pm during the weekend. Which means doing
| your shopping on friday night or saturday would take a
| lot of time as a lot of people were doing the same. Doing
| it any other day of the week was much quieter.
|
| I don't necessarily shop every day, but I do it several
| times a week. Also I don't buy my vegetables at the
| supermarket but at the fruteria (spanish place where you
| only buy fruits and vegetables). I mostly avoid premade
| dishes, I even do my own pizzas and tart doughs as well
| as bread sometimes. That means I am cooking every day.
| Problem with shopping once a week is I would have to
| decide for 7 breakfasts, 7 meals and at least 6 dinners.
| That is a lot of planning and live very little room for
| improvisation unless you are wiling to waste things or
| have a giant refrigerator which I have no room for in my
| european kitchen.
|
| And yes I enjoy going out for a walk/ride every day after
| work so it is not annoying at all.
|
| There is a lot of parameters to take into account, home
| space, schedules, shop opening hours, proximity, if tap
| water is drinkable and taste good...YMMV.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Problem with shopping once a week is I would have to
| decide for 7 breakfasts, 7 meals and at least 6 dinners.
| That is a lot of planning and live very little room for
| improvisation unless you are wiling to waste things or
| have a giant refrigerator which I have no room for in my
| european kitchen.
|
| I think that is an overestimate because you can have
| leftovers and also breakfast is generally pretty easy,
| but I agree that there is greater planning overhead.
|
| My partner and I compile a list of all the meals we want
| to make for the next two weeks before shopping, if you
| get in the habit it doesn't take too too long.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Well anyway I couldn't do that whithout relocating.
|
| 1. my fridge wouldn't be big enough
|
| 2. I have chosen to live carless because I don't have my
| own parking space and it is very difficult to find a
| parking space at any given time of the day close to my
| place.
|
| 3. I can only carry 2 european sized grocery shooping
| bags and a small backpack with my motorbike (a maxi
| scooter as they call it) when I go there with my gf. I
| can carry more in a hiking backpack if I go alone and I
| could theorically buy a bigger top case, similar to the
| big cube the pizza delivery riders are using but that
| would still be less than a fully loaded shopping cart.
| amelius wrote:
| But what about the claim in the video that there is more
| food waste in the US?
| jjulius wrote:
| >Yes, I am saying that if you cook frequently for
| yourself, it takes more time to shop every day.
|
| And I am saying that someone may still find it more
| "convenient" to do so in spite of whatever additional
| time may or may not be involved. Convenience is far too
| nuanced and dependent upon personal preference for you to
| be stating, as an absolute, that it is not more
| convenient for someone to shop every day than it is once
| every week or two.
|
| And I say this as someone who shops on a more weekly or
| bi-weekly basis.
| ginko wrote:
| I can't imagine only shopping every 1.5 or 2 weeks or so.
| What kind of produce or meat even stays fresh that long?!
|
| I usually decide what I want to cook on the evening when
| I go grocery shopping. Weekends kind of suck because I
| have to plan two days ahead. (and have to carry two days
| worth of food)
| tjoff wrote:
| There is, it costs less than 10 minutes per day extra and
| you get quite a bit of freedom from it and at the same
| time don't have to figure out every meal in advance and
| can adapt at the last minute.
|
| Bonus: I don't have to take the car either.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I do think people being reluctant to plan their meals is
| a large part of why this is less common (also most people
| don't seem to cook as much as I do so it might not add up
| as much).
|
| but stated otherwise, you are saying that my getting a
| big order saves me 2 hours every time I do it. 10 minutes
| is also almost certainly an underestimate, assuming you
| live a 5 minute walk from the grocery store.
| tjoff wrote:
| Well, the time and inconvenience to plan for two weeks
| easily surpasses two hours for me. And having to take the
| car. Sure, I'd pick a cheaper place with greater options
| when I go big but that is also a very small price to pay
| for the convenience.
|
| No, it takes less than a minute extra walk from my daily
| commute (walking), the rest of the nine minutes are to
| compensate for traversing the grocery store multiple
| times and wait in line at checkout.
|
| If I expand it by another ~4 minutes I have other options
| as well.
|
| If time was of extreme mindless essence I'd also take the
| bike.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| 2 weeks is maybe 6-8 cooked meals + leftovers, my partner
| and I will take maybe 15 minutes selecting 3-4 meals each
| from things we have cooked in the past or we would like
| to explore.
|
| Going daily to the grocery store costs lots of more time.
| The vast majority of people do not live a 1 minute walk
| from a grocery store, even in dense urban areas.
| rglullis wrote:
| > The vast majority of people do not live a 1 minute walk
| from a grocery store, even in dense urban areas.
|
| _In the US_ , which was the point of my original
| comment. Here in Berlin I have _at least_ 4 stores
| (Edeka, Lidl, Al Natura and a no-name Bio Markt ) in a
| 200m radius.
|
| ( _edit_ : I am not one to complain about downvotes, but
| it is ridiculous to see this comment in gray, yet no one
| able to actually address the point. Bad urban planning
| and car-dependency in North America _is_ intertwined with
| a lot of cultural aspects of the society, including this
| ridiculous notion that groceries are "inconvenient" and
| therefore better if done in bulk and/or less frequently)
| pessimizer wrote:
| The downvotes are probably because you're claiming that
| you walk 200m in a minute.
| rglullis wrote:
| It is not the claim at all and _still_ missing the point.
| [deleted]
| astrange wrote:
| The urban planning in the US was intentional; rather than
| bad it was evil. Berkeley invented "residential only
| zoning" to create neighborhoods of white office workers
| because Chinese immigrants were thought to run businesses
| out of their homes and wanted to ban them. (You can just
| look up their city council meeting minutes and they'd say
| this.)
|
| These days you might face resistance to allowing light
| industrial again because people would accuse it of
| creating traffic and possibly leading people to park in
| front of their house - Nextdoor posters' main principle
| is they should be able to park everywhere for free and
| nobody else should.
| tjoff wrote:
| I don't live a 1 minute walk from a grocery store either
| (well, I do, but I don't use that one), but I walk past a
| few on my 20 minute walk to work. And that have been the
| case for all of my life in all cities and apartments
| where I've lived.
|
| Doesn't apply to everyone of course (using a bike rather
| than walking dramatically helps though), but it does tie
| back to the US urban planning leaving a lot to be
| desired.
| Izkata wrote:
| > Well, the time and inconvenience to plan for two weeks
|
| Do people really do that? The majority of what I get is
| the same across trips.
|
| Also there's a thing we do that the daily shoppers sound
| unaware of: It's called a grocery list. A pad of paper
| left on the countertop that, at any time over those
| weeks, anyone in the house can add an item to if they
| want something different or know we're about to run out
| of. There's almost no planning involved.
| rglullis wrote:
| If you are shopping mostly food that is processed and
| that favors longevity over quality and freshness, sure.
| If you have a minimal amount of care for what you and
| your family eat, you will be buying every other day
| anyway.
|
| Also, if you watch the video you will see that bi-weekly
| driving/parking for groceries eats _more_ of your time
| budget than multiple small trips to a well-located shop.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > If you have a minimal amount of care for what you and
| your family eat, you will be buying every other day
| anyway.
|
| That's untrue. Produce, especially if bought fresh, keeps
| for longer than 2 days in the fridge.
|
| Certain items keep longer than others - carrots (of which
| I am especially fond of snacking on) keep very well.
| rglullis wrote:
| Yeah, but they don't keep for 2 _weeks_ , which is how
| often suburbanites shop in the US.
| robonerd wrote:
| A head of lettuce easily lasts 2 weeks in a fridge; loose
| or chopped lettuce lasts maybe half as long. Fruit last
| in the fruit basket on my counter, not even the fridge,
| for two weeks at least. Grapes I put in the fridge, and
| they last for weeks before they start to raisin up.
|
| What _doesn 't_ last for two weeks in a fridge?
| rglullis wrote:
| Like I said: food in the US is _designed_ for longevity,
| not for flavor or general quality. Organic stuff and
| local produce are not like that. They don 't last as
| long. I for one can not eat lettuce that has been on the
| fridge for more than 3 days.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Like I said: food in the US is designed for longevity,
| not for flavor or general quality. Organic stuff and
| local produce are not like that. They don't last as long.
| I for one can not eat lettuce that has been on the fridge
| for more than 3 days.
|
| I'm not in the US, I buy organic and local produce at a
| farmers market. They usually last two weeks in the
| fridge.
|
| If they are lasting only three days for you, maybe you
| are buying produce that is already over a week old.
| robonerd wrote:
| > _I for one can not eat lettuce that has been on the
| fridge for more than 3 days._
|
| Maybe you refuse to, but you _could_. An organic head of
| lettuce easily lasts a week or more in the fridge.
| Anyway, the extent to which produce has been "designed"
| is greatly overstated. Two hundred years ago people used
| to store apples in barrels for weeks if not months.
| zajio1am wrote:
| Plenty of local produce has just one or few harvests a
| year. if you buy it 2 weeks later, it just means it was 2
| weeks longer in storage of distributors.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| just not true, but I also don't eat meat or dairy so that
| might be a factor.
|
| most produce does not spoil anywhere near as fast as you
| are suggesting.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > there is no world in which shopping at the grocer every
| day is more convenient than shopping once every 1.5 or
| even 2 weeks or so
|
| I was with you until this rather extreme statement.
|
| It depends a lot on what "convenient" means. If you want
| fresh produce and meat and don't have the huge fridges
| that seem to exist in most American households, it's a
| lot more convenient to shop for fresh, newly arrived
| stuff at a small neighborhood grocer's every 2-3 days.
|
| It's also a form of social contact, another thing which
| isn't really included in "convenience", but maybe should
| be; given how many people are talking about mental health
| problems caused by lack of social contact these days.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > If you want fresh produce and meat and don't have the
| huge fridges that seem to exist in most American
| households
|
| How far do you take this? If you don't have a
| refrigerator at all, or any way to prepare food at home,
| then it's more convenient to eat out three times a day.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I think the produce thing is not as big of a factor as
| people seem to think, except for certain things which of
| necessary I can pick up at the farmers market (SF has one
| every day).
|
| I don't eat animal products so that might be influencing
| my thoughts around food longevity though.
|
| I was measuring convenience in terms of time. It seems
| from my observation that a lot of people also don't cook
| for themselves as much as we do, so they might get more
| value out of the small trip.
| rglullis wrote:
| It a lot easier to freeze meat than, e.g, fruits or green
| produce. Most of my small shopping trips during the week
| are to buy those: apples, bananas, strawberries, a head
| of lettuce, and so on.
| nautilius wrote:
| There's a huge world you are not aware of then: I used to
| stop at a small grocer downtown every day on my bike
| commute home. That's absolutely a lot less time and much
| less hassle than getting the car out, driving to some
| huge shop with lots of parking, finding parking, filling
| gas, and then making several trips from car to home. And,
| obviously, if you want fresh bread/produce/etc. that
| requires more frequent shopping.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| Exactly. I'd have to make a giant stroad-y detour to/from
| the office to go to the grocery store. Even if gas wasn't
| $5 / gallon, the time sink isn't worth it
| axiomsEnd wrote:
| I have 6 medium-sized shops, 2 shops selling only vegetables,
| 6 small shops selling basics and ready-to-eat meals in 10
| minut walk radius. This is a lot, but in other parts of town
| you will probably have at least one medium and one small shop
| open between 6-22. It's in city, but most villages in here
| often have similar situations. So I would say it depends on
| country.
| MrLeap wrote:
| 35 pounds of butter will provide enough calories for you to
| walk to space. Butter based diets make a basket life for even
| a family of 14 trivial.
|
| Think about it.
|
| https://what-if.xkcd.com/126/
| [deleted]
| OJFord wrote:
| Personally I'd upgrade that to shopping 'offline' at all.
|
| As a result when I do go to a supermarket myself for
| something it's not enough to warrant more than a basket, but
| man is it a nightmare having to actually 'search' for stuff
| instead of just typing it into a box!
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I have personally found that as someone who eats a lot of
| vegetables that online shopping is not tenable for produce
| selection, your mileage might vary.
|
| sometimes I do something really ridiculous which is get a
| pickup order for my non-produce items and then go into the
| store just to buy the produce.
| OJFord wrote:
| I do too, it's fine in my experience. Occasionally I get
| something that I think 'surely there was a longer-dated
| or better-knick one, this isn't the one I'd have picked
| myself', but in such cases they just refund it.
| paganel wrote:
| Like other people have said, I shop on a daily basis, there's
| a store close to us which is open every day and the price
| difference compared to other, bigger stores which are located
| just outside the city is not that big. It's me, my SO, our
| dog and our cat, it's pretty doable, fresh produce and fresh
| fruits every day (especially now, as the summer comes) is
| pure heaven.
|
| We're not big meat nor processed food consumers, and ordering
| take-out food is oftentimes comparable (if you add in the
| opportunity cost of the time and energy spent cooking).
| balaji1 wrote:
| There are so many grocery delivery or pick-up options these
| days (depends on where you live), I find it surprising
| people don't prefer those. For most people, I would expect
| that shopping is somewhat of a boring and tiresome chore.
|
| Big box stores are different. I guess the prices on Amazon
| are now significantly higher and delivery is taking longer
| these days, to make the trip to a trip to a Walmart or
| Target. Still I don't understand how some people's eyes
| light up as they push around shopping carts.
|
| It just shows me how much I don't understand other people's
| lives. And a reason to be even more polite when interacting
| with strangers.
| blown_gasket wrote:
| To offer a different perspective. I personally dislike
| both grocery delivery and pick-up options.
|
| Pick-up doesn't tend to list every option available.
| Pick-up also doesn't let you see the fruit or vegetables
| that are going into your cart until you've already paid.
| (I spend A LOT of money on fruit which approaches 50% of
| my diet on some days).
|
| Delivery there is a fee and I by principal don't try to
| use services that incur a fee when I can perform the task
| myself. This is also why I don't use delivery for pizza.
|
| I frankly don't trust strangers doing the pick-up. I've
| had to use this service a couple of times during self-
| isolation during the height of the pandemic and there was
| always something out-of-stock, which seemed implausible,
| as I never had an issue with my groceries being out of
| stock.
|
| I don't see how shopping is boring or tiresome, it can
| definitely be agitating to have to deal with the entire
| spectrum of your local populous in a cramped labyrinth
| but you are walking, searching, and making decisions. It
| is definitely a chore though.
|
| I'm visiting the grocery store at least once per day on
| average but I also live a mile away. With work-from-
| home/work-remote it helps to feed the social need in me,
| even if I'm not chatting with strangers, I'm seeing them.
| Izkata wrote:
| > I frankly don't trust strangers doing the pick-up. I've
| had to use this service a couple of times during self-
| isolation during the height of the pandemic and there was
| always something out-of-stock, which seemed implausible,
| as I never had an issue with my groceries being out of
| stock.
|
| This is the big one for me. All current grocery delivery
| options in my area rely on gig workers, which is
| essentially having any random person on the street touch
| your food.
|
| I used to use Peapod, which had actual employees, so
| there's a bit of extra responsibility and in theory
| safety/reliability. Not really much worse than, say, a
| restaurant. Unfortunately they completely left the
| Midwest in Feb 2020 (great timing eh?).
| telesilla wrote:
| >always something out-of-stock, which seemed implausible
|
| Maybe these services use dark stores, where they aren't
| running around your local supermarket picking up items
| but have a private warehouse in the city. So lots of
| things are out of stock.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_store
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Do you live in SF? If so, I'm curious what neighborhood.
|
| > ordering take-out food is oftentimes comparable
|
| I find people who do the daily shopping thing tend to order
| more take out than people who do the bulk shopping thing.
| it might have to do with them skewing younger though
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I shop almost daily and rarely go to restaurants or order
| online. My freezer contains only ice cream.
|
| The shop is 2min by car and next to my kids' school so
| it's quite convenient.
|
| I could shop in a cheaper store further away but having
| fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables is a great plus.
| paganel wrote:
| Half way around the world, actually :) In Bucharest,
| Romania.
|
| Where we live now the super-market is oftentimes closer
| to our building's entrance compared to where I park our
| car (the supermarket is obviously always in the same
| place, but the parking location is variable from day to
| day, depending on luck). Even at the place where we staid
| before this, the tram station was just across the street,
| so it was doable to get out of work, pass by the
| supermarket, get in the tram, home.
|
| As I now work from home (since even before the pandemic)
| I value the shopping and the interaction with the
| supermarket's cashiers for itself, not quite like in a
| _Shop Around the Corner_ way but, nevertheless, it kind
| of builds some "community"-like vibe.
|
| I also do the shopping for our two pets by walking to the
| pet-shop myself, it's a 15-20 minute walk each way I'd
| say. It would be a little cheaper to buy their food
| online, in bulk, and would "save" that time that I spend
| walking to and back from the shop, but, like mentioned
| above, buying food for our pets while talking with the
| pet-food cashier about what new pet treats they have
| brought in or some other stuff like that is an experience
| that I value for itself.
| msrenee wrote:
| I'm a 15 minute walk from the pet store, but I'd have to
| go a half mile out of my way to get there by sidewalk.
| Otherwise I'd have to hike up and down a steep, weedy
| hill. Either way, I have to get across a 4 busy lanes of
| traffic traveling at 45 mph. I'd kill for an overpass.
| Even then, I'm buying a 30 lb bag of dog food, because
| the savings vs multiple smaller bags is huge. It's
| doable, but I couldn't pick up much of anything else on
| that trip.
|
| I wonder if I could train one of these mutts to pull a
| cart.
| csydas wrote:
| I want to second that I have the impression the parent is
| speaking from a strictly american perspective. I'm an
| American that emigrated to eastern europe, and even
| before I emigrated, I had already started to get _used_
| to the way a lot of Europe has it.
|
| I lived in Russia and Armenia and Czech Republic for
| quite a few years now, and the difference in how the
| cities are laid out is quite apparent; having a small but
| well stocked market every couple hundred meters really
| makes planning _far_ easier, and frequent trips are not a
| problem. Before COVID hit, it used to be that I'd just
| stop at the market on the first floor of my building and
| grab the few perishable essentials I needed (meat, some
| vegetables) and had plenty to cook for myself and for
| friends/neighbors that would visit.
|
| This simply isn't the case in the US, even in the most
| modern cities. The corner markets/bodegas/whatever don't
| come close to what the common market in Europe has; you
| can get pretty alright quality _whatever_ at these
| markets, and leave the more exotic stuff (mostly asian
| ingredients/items or non-common spices) for when you go
| to a super market.
|
| That isn't to say that no one ever does the traditional
| hypermarket run outside of the US; seeing babushkas and
| their hand carts packed with a week's worth of food and
| drinks trudging down the lane is a normal sight, but just
| as frequently they're stopping by the meat market near
| their commie block or by the small shops at the base of
| their building to get a few quick essentials.
|
| It's honestly far more convenient; and at least prior to
| Ukraine situation, the home delivery options in Russia
| were fantastic, albeit a bit abusive of the work force
| when it came to wages.
| gkop wrote:
| Think Gus's family of markets in SF. And independent
| markets like Golden on Church St between Duboce and
| Market. Other Avenues in the Sunset. And countless ethnic
| markets across the city. All these will be quicker to get
| in and out of than a Safeway or a Whole Foods.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Stores like Golden charge for the convenience. Most
| people in SF live more than 5 minutes walk from a Gus's
| or equivalent.
|
| Gus's are not faster than a Safeway or Whole Foods in my
| experience, ethnic markets definitely are.
| gkop wrote:
| I'm so confused by your comments. How are you carrying
| your groceries home? Full-sized shopping cart implies
| car. Car in SF, on the median, means calling an Uber,
| renting a Zipcar, moving another car in a tandem garage,
| operating a stacker, or finding a new street parking
| space when you come home - this shit takes _time_. Plus,
| parking at the store is often its own sport.
|
| Versus just popping into the green grocer on your way
| back from whatever other walking or bicycling errand in
| the second most dense city in the US..
|
| Also, what do your taste buds and nutritionist say about
| the value of produce freshness?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I use a car now, but it is part of my once a week commute
| that I go to the grocer.
|
| I think street parking difficulty really depends on the
| neighborhood, in general SF is no Manhattan. I also grew
| up in the city and based on my observation seem to find
| parking considerably faster than my peers, so YMMV.
|
| When I lived near Dolores park, if it wasn't the weekend
| parking was really easy. In Divorce triangle, parking is
| a little harder but still not that bad.
|
| e: Duboce triangle, not divorce triangle haha
| jwagenet wrote:
| What? Around Potrero Hill, Gus's is a third of the size
| of Safeway and half the size of Whole Foods, and that
| might still be generous. If you know what you are looking
| for a Gus's trip takes less time on the merit of taking
| less walking the aisles due to store size alone.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It's a function of the number of customers and the
| checkout time, not the size of the store IMO.
| jghn wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| There are 4 grocery stores in easy walking distance to me,
| and a few more within a 10 min drive. There are also over a
| dozen specialty markets in that same radius. And a weekly
| farmers market about a 10 min walk away.
|
| I go food shopping ~3 times a week and just pick up what we
| need for the next couple of days.
| robonerd wrote:
| A basket worth of food lasts me about five days. If I were
| shopping once a day, I think a basket of food could feed five
| for a day.
| Markoff wrote:
| that depends on size of basket nad things you buy, 2-3 bags
| of chips easily fill smaller baskets and I dont think you
| could survive on that long, let alone family, same with
| milk boxes for instance
| leetcrew wrote:
| chips are one of the least space-efficient foods you
| could possibly pick. they're not particularly good for
| you either. I definitely would not recommend feeding your
| family chips for a whole week, whether or not they fit in
| the basket.
|
| this is actually something I like about shopping into a
| basket. it forces me to be more intentional about my food
| choices. instead of a ton of snacks, I buy simple
| ingredients that can be combined into lots of different
| meals. it also prevents me from overflowing the pantry of
| my small apartment.
|
| I typically allocate two thirds of my basket staples
| (milk, eggs, pasta, canned tomatoes, canned beans, rice)
| and top off the remaining third with whatever
| fruits/vegetables look good and possibly some chicken
| thighs or a nice steak. this is enough to feed myself for
| two weeks, though I could go as much as three if I go
| heavier on the staples.
|
| obviously how you choose to shop is up to you. but you
| can fit a lot of healthy ingredients into a single basket
| if you're strategic about it.
| hansthehorse wrote:
| That's why I've always called them bachelor baskets.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I do the same and I have 2 kids.
|
| Not using a cart allows you to gauge the weight of everthing
| and it is especially useful if you walk or cycle to the
| supermarket. Now I am working from home so I just go several
| times a week, I definitely don't mind doing that as the first
| thing I want to do when I stop working is having a walk or a
| bicycle ride outside. Before I used to do that when commuting
| back home.
| danaris wrote:
| And what about when you're buying a 28-lb box of kitty litter,
| or a 30-lb bag of kibble?
|
| Or, heck, even just a gallon of milk?
|
| That basket gets pretty heavy pretty fast, depending on what
| you're buying.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Some stores like Target and CVS have wheelie baskets now.
| They look like this[1] or this[2] and you can use them either
| handheld or roll-along but I'll admit they're a bit
| cumbersome to carry. For me, at least. Maybe they're the
| perfect size for bigger/taller people.
|
| [1]https://thefixturezone.com/shopping-basket-on-wheels-with-
| pu...
|
| [2]http://m.thai.groceryshoppingtrolley.com/sale-3255999-colo
| rf...
| goosedragons wrote:
| Me too. It's been frustrating since the pandemic started and
| all the grocery stores near me used that as an excuse to remove
| them. The high end one has them back but not the others.
| bombcar wrote:
| People used to use carts that looked like this:
| https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-Heavy-Duty-Steel-Shopp...
| though perhaps not as heavy duty.
|
| Quite capable of bringing home a week's worth of groceries in
| one go.
|
| If you live within walking distance of a store and don't like
| shopping daily, buying your own cart (of a different
| style/color than the store's) can be a great deal.
| belter wrote:
| Your link is not working but I think you meant this?
|
| https://images.thdstatic.com/productImages/e1f8af99-7af9-45e.
| ..
|
| https://946e583539399c301dc7-100ffa5b52865b8ec92e09e9de9f4d0.
| ..
| Izkata wrote:
| They did; your first link is the exact same product image.
| umpalumpaaa wrote:
| Access denied
| Markoff wrote:
| And how exactly shopping cart force you to buy more stuff? Do
| US shopping carts have some built in device giving
| electroshocks unless they are filled to certain capacity?
|
| I decide whether I take cart or basket depending on my shopping
| list, obviously if I am going to buy heavy things I am not
| going to carry it around shop in basket or if it's one of those
| shops with very small area behind checkout it's better to put
| stuff back to cart.
|
| Best compromise is bigger basket on wheels (which can be
| pulled) for medium purchases, no need to bother with coin, no
| need to carry heavier stuff in hand and no need to return it
| back to inconvenient location plus in theory it gives you time
| to organize your grocery later after checkout.
|
| Btw I don't have car, so I carry everything in backpack, either
| big (50-60L) or medium one (~30L) and eventually lighter things
| (bread/cakes/chips etc) in big plastic bag, cart vs basket have
| again nothing to do with this.
|
| By your logic you should take with you only limited amount of
| cash, if you have such bad self control that you need to limit
| yourself with basket size and honestly I think you should seek
| some psychological help if your self control is that bad.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I think your comment is over the top and unnecessarily rude.
| No, parent commenter doesn't need "psychological help"
| because they prefer to use a basket over a cart in order to
| buy fewer items. But, in case you're actually curious about
| why someone would say such a thing:
| https://www.fastcompany.com/3057306/how-the-shopping-cart-
| sh...
|
| It's also addressed pretty early on in the posted article.
| bombcar wrote:
| If you go to Costco, you see almost everyone using a cart
| checks out with a full cart - if they reduced the size of
| their carts they'd likely reduce the average purchase amount,
| which indicates the size of the cart helps their sales. Still
| got room? Might as well buy it!
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Well, sure.
|
| People generally go to Costco about twice a month. Costco
| is a bulk goods store, and you pay for the ability to shop
| there. It'd be sort of stupid and wasteful to go to Costco
| to pick up one item unless you're just really into
| rotisserie chickens.
| lazyant wrote:
| I find the wheeled basket that you move like a carry-on the
| best option; small so you don't buy a lot of stuff, nimble (can
| get around shopping carts) but don't have to strain your arm
| and hand after you put a gallon of milk.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Fantastic innovation. Crazy to think such things are relatively
| novel. Makes Costco feasible.
| odiroot wrote:
| I still hate them. They take too much space. When I still lived
| in Germany, I specifically avoided supermarkets in my district
| that had them.
| tonymet wrote:
| they were right
| eru wrote:
| It's interesting that shopping carts that you have to insert a
| coin into still seem to be uncommon in the US. They were the
| obvious way to incentivise people to bring the carts back in
| Germany.
|
| (And not necessarily the same people who shopped with them.
| People who find an abandoned shopping cart in the parking lot
| would often bring it back to the store to get at the coin.)
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| 1-2 eur for a cart is not a bad deal.
|
| I saw plenty of supermarkets with carts asking for coin having
| their cart stolen and abandoned across town. I think it's
| mainly linked with whether you have juvenile "gangs" fooling
| around or not
| zdragnar wrote:
| The only place in the US that I have seen them is at Aldi
| bombcar wrote:
| And even Aldi here has to station a guy to give you a cart
| and collect those in the parking lot, mainly because _people
| often don't have the quarter_ to get one.
|
| It's a cute idea but I'm not sure it's practical in the long
| run.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I wonder if this is regional or specific to your location.
| I've been to several (and have frequently shopped at two)
| and they've never had a person staffing the carts.
|
| It has been practical for a long time, but you may be right
| in that they'll have a hard time with the younger
| generations that transition to being cashless.
| eru wrote:
| And that's because they are extremely German.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Yeah, I probably should have clarified that for anyone who
| isn't familiar. It's a German grocery chain that also
| operates in the US.
| robonerd wrote:
| Relying on the honor system may be less effective, but I prefer
| it anyway because it feels a whole lot less demeaning. No
| quarter is essentially the store saying _' We trust you to do
| the right thing'_ whereas the quarter says _' betcha we can
| make you behave with a quarter'_
|
| Also, stray shopping carts left in the lot really doesn't seem
| like a big problem worth solving to me. The lots all have cart
| returns scattered throughout them, so you're never very far
| from one, and the vast majority of people use them.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I prefer the pragmatic approach of assuming (not without
| evidence) that people won't behave without incentive. I'm
| much more annoyed by carts all over the parking lot than I am
| by temporarily putting a coin in a slot. And I like the happy
| side effect of not seeing miserable teenagers in vests tasked
| with collecting rogue carts on cold nights.
| robonerd wrote:
| Why does the teenager have that job, and would the teenager
| be happier without a job?
|
| Besides teenagers, grocery stores often hire mentally
| impaired people for bagging and cart wrangling. They seem
| to enjoy the work more than the teenagers.
| kaashif wrote:
| > Why does the teenager have that job, and would the
| teenager be happier without a job?
|
| Isn't the point here that the teenager has that job
| because there are no coin slots in carts, so there has to
| be someone collecting the carts?
|
| I don't know if the teenager would be happier without a
| job, but that is a bit of a leading question - it's not
| like fetching carts is the only job that exists. Maybe
| they would prefer to work a different job that doesn't
| involve cart wrangling, and involves spending more time
| doing something useful.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| No worries, comparatively little of their time is spent
| cart wrangling and if that responsibility did not exist
| it more than likely would not impact their employment
| status in any meaningful way.
| eru wrote:
| I was more thinking of carts strewn throughout the city.
|
| But, I guess, American supermarkets are not anywhere near the
| cities.
| robonerd wrote:
| All three of the grocery stores I shop at are in the city.
| All three of them have honor system cart returns, and I've
| never seen a stray cart in my neighborhood. Even the
| homeless seem to leave the carts alone, or at least stash
| them where they won't be seen.
| jarenmf wrote:
| During the pandemic many stores in Germany left all the carts
| unlocked and it seems that some of them didn't go back to the
| old system. So probably they've realized it's a silly thing
| to do and maybe it actually bring more customers if you left
| the carts unlocked. I actually used to chose stores that
| don't require a coin to unlock the carts.
| 13of40 wrote:
| Exactly this. Also, for example, no security cameras at
| Trader Joe's and no scales in the self checkout at Whole
| Foods. I'm a grownup, you don't need forcing functions to
| make me behave like one.
| fredley wrote:
| US doesn't have high enough denomination coins to make it work
| I imagine.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| How many people even have coins in their car anymore, much
| less in their pocket? I have a small supply of coins in my
| car just in case but I imagine a lot of people haven't
| touched a coin or bill in years.
| kube-system wrote:
| It works at Aldi in the US. The incentive is not so much that
| I can't afford throwing away 25 cents, but it's that, the
| next time I shop at Aldi, I need a quarter to get a cart.
| hereforphone wrote:
| On the list of ways to judge the quality of a society, people
| putting carts back where they belong is up there with using
| turn signals.
| amelius wrote:
| Probably because in the US it is not so easy to walk away with
| a cart and take it any further than the parking lot. It also
| wouldn't make much sense.
|
| In Germany, you could theoretically walk your cart a few blocks
| to your home, then leave it on the street.
| morelisp wrote:
| We have an Oma in our apartment who brings a cart back
| periodically, keeps it at the bike rack, and walks it back to
| the store the next day she goes shopping.
| raverbashing wrote:
| A lot of places have an invisible perimeter for shopping
| carts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QKcprQD0zc
| dougmwne wrote:
| I still avoid them. They feel gluttonous to me and I prefer to
| shop with a basket. I also like the slightly larger baskets on
| wheels. Filling a cart is just about guaranteed to create some
| food waste in our household.
|
| Also, if I walk or bike to the store, a basket conveniently
| alerts me when I have picked up too much food to carry home
| comfortably.
| ge96 wrote:
| I try to shop in bulk eg. once every 2-3 weeks so I use a
| shopping cart.
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