Of Kumquats and Pineapples
Polley shared with me a newspaper article describing how stores like Sears and Macy’s were moving out of malls. Replacing them were supermarkets. One of my failings is that I see every event as an indicator of cultural change. I have to catch myself and remember Freud’s comment that a cigar is just a cigar…..but that is no fun. So…..an obvious reason for the abandonment of malls by clothing department stores is the rise of online shopping. Hence the mall vacuum being filled by food stores. Not too many people order kumquats online. Not yet.
My earliest memories of shopping contain mental movie reels of my mother, pulling a vertical cart behind her down the sidewalks of Burnside Avenue in the Bronx.
We passed up some stores and entered others based on a rationale I was too young to understand. We would visit the butcher or fish monger or both, then the store that sold fruit, maybe the dairy store (we were not big milk drinkers in my family), and finally the grocer for canned goods, vegetables and staples like sugar and salt. My mother paid all the proprietors in cash. By the time we got back to the apartment building, the vertical cart was quite heavy, and we struggled to get it up the five flights of stairs.
My Uncle Ray and my Aunt Marge lived in the apartment above us. He and his brother owned a grocery store in Harlem, New York, and on Friday nights Uncle Ray would bring home leftover fruits and vegetables that were in season….pineapples, pomegranates, persimmons; whatever he shared was fresh and luscious, and we could identify the seasons by the produce Uncle Ray brought home.
Once a month my father drove us to Arthur Avenue and the Italian market. My mother would haggle with the owner over the price of the leg of lamb or beef ribs, asking him to throw in some end pieces for free. My father always asked the owner if his son could pluck an olive from the big wooden barrel, and the answer was always yes. Then the cheese store and the bakery for cannolis or sfogliatelle. It was an all-day affair, but I was happy, using one hand to hold my father’s hand and using the other to cradle an Italian lemon ice with real bits of lemon.
When we moved to the suburbs of northern New Jersey, my mother endured a shopping cultural shock. There was a local bakery, but no butcher, fishmonger, dairy, or grocer…at least there were no such stores within walking distance. And my mother did not have a driver’s license. No need for one in the Bronx. But, our town did have the Coop, a supermarket. My mother developed new habits.
Our family’s shopping trends followed the pattern of most Americans. At the turn of the twentieth century, most people shopped at grocery stores, waiting at the counter while the grocery clerk filled the orders. So much for impulse buying, except for the items displayed by the cash register. “Then, in 1916 Clarence Saunders opened the Piggly Wiggly store in Memphis, Tennessee. ‘Astonished customers,’ write the Sterns in their Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, ‘were given baskets (shopping carts weren’t invented) and sent through the store to pick what they needed-a job formerly reserved for clerks.’” http://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/02/the-origin-of-the-supermarket/
At first, “supermarkets” were disparagingly referred to as “cheapies,” and the media and grocer associations ridiculed their existence. A factor that changed American minds about these new stores was the invention of the ignition switch for automobiles. Women found it too hard to crank the engines, but with the ignition switch women could expand their shopping radius from “walking distance” to area supermarkets. This innovation led to the parking lot—no more cruising the street searching for a parking space. My mother got her driving license, and shopping in our family became an all-day affair as my mother comparative shopped at two or three supermarkets within five miles of our home. Another innovation that spurred the popularity of supermarkets was cellophane. Customers could now see the meat they were buying, bolstering their perception that they were in charge of making the buying decision. Suddenly, supermarkets became very democratic and very American. When Polley and I were in Paris many years ago, we noticed the extremely linguistical-protectionist French had to yield to Americanese and identify their stores as “Le Supermarket.” There was no other term in French.
I thought back in the eighties that supermarkets as they existed would soon become extinct. What led me to this erroneous conclusion was a visit to my sister-in-law in Missouri who could go online and see the comparative prices of items on her shopping list at local supermarkets. She then could call each supermarket, order her items, and drive around to the pickup window of each one and collect her groceries….all without leaving her car. The problem with this convenience (from the store’s perspective) is that it severely curtailed impulse buying.
There is a wonderful scene in the movie Moscow on the Hudson, starring Robin Williams as a Russian musician who defects from the barren shelves of the Soviet Union’s stores to the American supermarket and its shelves filled from floor to ceiling with buying options. He enters the store to purchase coffee and looks up from his shopping list to see the cans of coffee stacked as far as he can see. Dizzied from the choices, he faints.
Robin Williams was awed by the options he could exercise, but we take it for granted. What I find interesting is the idea that we are in charge of making the decisions. Maybe.
“When you see items on a supermarket shelf, you are actually looking at a planogram. A planogram is defined as a “diagram or model that indicates the placement of retail products on shelves in order to maximise sales”. Within these planograms, one phrase commonly used is “eye level is buy level”, indicating that products positioned at eye level are likely to sell better. You may find that the more expensive options are at eye level or just below, while the store’s own brands are placed higher or lower on the shelves. Next time you are in a supermarket, just keep note of how many times you need to bend down, or stretch, to reach something you need. You might be surprised.” http://theconversation.com/the-science-that-makes-us-spend-more-in-supermarkets-and-feel-good-while-we-do-it-23857
I am not surprised. My personal code of shopping etiquette forbids my choosing an item from a shelf below knee level. One reason for this is my indelicate balance caused by my Parkinson’s. I don’t want the “Cleanup in Aisle 8” to be me.
When I shop, I am aware that I am deliberately being manipulated. “The ‘number of facings’, that is how many items of a product you can see, also has an effect on sales. The more visible a product, the higher the sales are likely to be. The location of goods in an aisle is also important. There is a school of thought that goods placed at the start of an aisle do not sell as well. A customer needs time to adjust to being in the aisle, so it takes a little time before they can decide what to buy.”
And supermarket marketing science takes into account the type of shopper. My mother-in-law did all the shopping in her household until she fell sick and sent my father-in-law, sans grocery list, to the supermarket to procure the week’s vittles. He came back with two steaks and a bag of Snickers. Given the power to choose, he opted to enact his fantasy meal. I understood his choices perfectly.
For a time, when our four children were young and Polley was nursing our twins and our schedules were a chaotic mosaic of overlapping responsibilities, I did the weekly food shopping on Saturdays, dropping off our oldest Christie at Jazz and Tap lessons. I had only an hour to fill the cart from the list Polley provided and drive back to pick Christie up. No impulse buying here.
Now, my shopping is more of a saunter than a mad dash up and down aisles. I notice things. I notice the lighting, some stores more dingy than others. I notice the labeling of aisles and think about the marketing logic. Some stores have aisles identified as “Mediterranean” or “International.” This is where one finds tomato sauce for pasta. Other stores carry the same item in the “Pasta” aisle. Eventually shoppers develop a map for each supermarket. Personally I like to view what stores advertise outside. Barbeque pits, fireplace logs, even outdoor patio sets are sometimes on display. Now, if I was in the market for a patio set, my first thought would not be a visit to Piggily Wiggily. But that is my mindset.
One area that tests my sense of justice and fairness is the express lane. I used to be more judgmental as I scrutinized the carts of the people ahead of me in the “15 Items or Less” lane, making certain they adhered to the quota. It annoyed me when someone cheated, basically because I felt helpless. There is no Express Lane Police. Then, one day, I got caught with 16 items. Who knew that two bags of baby spinach counted as two items?
A section I totally avoid no matter the store is the Self-Checkout line. I am in the regular checkout lane, a guy in a red and tan plaid coat pushing a cart with some steaks and a couple of bags of Snickers behind me, when I decide to drop out of this queue and line up in the Self-Checkout line. My first problem with this dynamic is that I haven’t quite got the swipe down. I often have to swipe an item three or four times before the scanner recognizes it. My second issue is that I tend to get into arguments with the metallic mechanical scanner voice.
“Please swipe the next item.”
I swipe. The scanner does not recognize my swipe.
“Please swipe the item again.”
I swipe the item again.
“Please swipe the item again.”
This is supposed to save me time?
My dialogue with the scanner continues.
“Please place the item in the bag.”
I place the item in the bag.
“Please place the item in the bag.”
“Hey! I placed the item in the bag!”
“Please place the item in the bag.”
So I retrieve the item from the bag, wait two seconds and replace the item in the bag.
“Please place the item in the bag.”
“Dammit!!! I just placed the %$%#@ item in the bag!! Thrice!!”
Finally, when the scanner is satisfied I have placed the item in the bag, I press the image of the filled cart signifying I am finished buying. I press the credit card icon.
“Thank you for your purchases. Please swipe your card.”
I swipe the card.
Whirling and humming. I can see the machine thinking.
“Please swipe your card again.”
I swipe the card again.
“Please see the attendant.”
Self-Checkout always has a helpful attendant who helps me with my card swiping. Personally, I believe the Self-Checkout Helpful Attendant would be better used behind a regular cash register in a regular lane or commissioned as an officer of the Express Lane Police.
Yes. I agree with you. I understand that navigating the waters of supermarket shopping is a first world problem. The very fact that marketing is such a big deal in the industry is because the marketers know that shoppers have options….and the seasons are blurred at the supermarket. Pineapples, pomegranates, persimmons, though of varying quality, available at all times of the year from all over the world. At times I think it is wise to be reflective and revel in the choices we have.