The act of going to the store is in itself
wasteful and unnecessary, and has become a fad that is grotesque and
abhorrent. This resource-sucking fad
exists even in the wake of the thousands of online retailers that offer so much
more choice, flexible prices, and variety.
Conventional retail stores are the familiar large buildings that people
go to pick up merchandise. Going to the
store requires a lot of energy in the form of gas and food; time
that can be put to use in more constructive and needed ends like family and
friendship time; and resources that are largely wasted. Using stores requires that a massive number
of infrastructure and services be used and maintained; such as warehouses,
transportation systems, electricity, water, etc. And personal resources from each user; like
your vehicle, clothing, shoes, cellular phones, etc., which in turn need to be
maintained at a cost.
The simple
act of going to the store triggers a chain reaction of other expenditures and
costs that are hard to estimate and could be quite high. Just think of the vehicle maintenance costs
that could be attributed to every shopping trip you ever did. Shopping, now a days, is a very common task
for most Americans and it is used many times more than online shopping. And, it’s a large consumer of everyone’s
available energy; which is paid-for energy.
So, that large amount of energy, spend on shopping in stores, can be
calculated as a percentage of the cost of the energy required to maintain this
habit and costs such as vehicle maintenance, insurance, and vehicle devaluation
per year. All of these costs could
amount to many thousands of dollars per year per individual; and billions of
dollars to each community.
Additionally,
think about the percentage of contributed pollution each trip you take to the
store. And, much of the energy you spend
from the food you eat goes to shopping.
Also, the time spent getting ready, driving, and walking through a huge
department store can amount to over hours per month and more in some
cases. What can you accomplish in 8, 10,
12, 24 hours? Which are good examples of
time blocks spent on shopping per month.
When you think of all of the energy, resources and time spent on
shopping, including all of the material resources that the act requires.
The costs
incurred by keeping merchandise for stores are enormous. Multimillion dollar air conditioned buildings
need to be build, staffed and maintained only to keep a bunch of over- or
under-stocked merchandise in a certain location for everyone to (hopefully) go
pick buy when they need it or want it.
This system is highly wasteful and could be eradicated all together in
the wake of internet shopping.
Warehouses are expensive to build and maintain, let alone fancy stores
that aim to attract buyer simply because of the glamour and aura of buying at
their store. Floors are polished, and
decoration costs go to the tens of thousands per store to keep a certain “feel”
at most stores. Those funds could be
used in more important things like education, healthcare, community projects,
and social programs. There won’t be a
need to build and keep up with all of the stores and warehouses, only a
fraction of them for the major retail stores.
For example, Amazon and EBay could keep strategically located and fully
automated warehouses throughout regions, and a large percentage of trading and
shopping could be peer to peer (P2P) skipping the middle sales person and
saving many millions of dollars in the process.
Maintaining
stock is also highly wasteful, stock needs to be constantly watched over, moved
around, kept in temperature controlled rooms, and be attempted to be sold under
much pressure as much of it “expires” or “devalues” with time; rather quickly
in some cases (such as computer technologies, cars, etc.) The personnel to keep up with merchandise at
stocks is an enormous cost for the retailers and the economy in general. And, while keeping up with stock provides
jobs, these jobs are rather monotonous, boring, and mind-numbing. The equipment and energy needed to handle
stock is enormous. Think about all the
forklifts, diesel generators, trucks, air conditioned storage, refrigerated
storage, and the massive amount of power that would be saved if most stores and
warehouses were demolished.
Stocking
merchandise necessarily adds cost to all items.
This is because of the massive energies and resources used to transport,
stock, and maintain them while stocked.
These added fees are ultimately added to the price of the items which
are sold, and the ones that don’t sell; incur a bigger loss. Again, personnel, property, real state, and
energy is dedicated to items, even when they sit still in a warehouse. So, in the end prices for all items are
bloated and higher than they would be if the pull-push method is used. The push-pull method is a 5S method that
requires manufacturers to build only as demand requires them to build. For example, if a vacuum cleaner is sold,
then another one is built to replace it; instead of manufacturing 1000 vacuum
cleaners hoping to sell all or most of them.
Prices become less flexible when the added costs of stocking them is
attached to them, making many retailers sell items at no-less-than-a-minimum
price or “loose” the item.
Even
“Locality fees” can be attached to items when they are stocked in a certain
location, for example if an item is stocked in New York City or Tokyo where
space is scarce and expensive; this added cost is added to each item. Alternatively, items could be pulled and
pushed one at-a-time or stored in cheaper and less costly locations to be delivered
only at request. Also, when items have
the appearance of being “only” available at a certain store or location; a
higher price than it’s worth may be attached to it because of this exclusivity;
thus opening up “availability abuse”.
This is apparent in many areas and stores that work hard to give the
appearance of being the only ones to carry the item(s). Again, the internet and global delivery
systems (UPS, FedEx) have changed the game in the trade and purchasing and
should be used to minimize all the costs associate with stocking items in
stores and warehouses.
Conventional
stores more often than not keep stocks that are higher or lower than
needed. This situation creates
unnecessary costs to merchandise because of storage costs added to overstock,
and demand costs added to items that must be rushed delivered due to low or no
availability. The best option is the
pull-push model of trade, but this model is unlikely to be used when over or
understocking. When lower than needed
merchandise is kept, then those that need the merchandise suffer due to
unavailability; when the merchandise is abundant then waste and environmental
damage is likely. And, overstocking
necessarily detours needed resources from important social, health, and
educational ends.
Going
and using conventional stores is time and energy wasting in a human sense. The act of walking through the large isles of
modern stores is energy and time demanding, potentially taking up many hundreds
of hours per person per year, and using up massive amounts of energy. Isle shopping can trigger impulsive shopping
and hoarding. Many people pick up extra
items on every trip to the stores as they attempt to maximize the use of their
trip, thus over shopping or hoarding.
Impulsive shopping just to keep up with fad, fashion, or latest models;
is likely during trips to the store.
Many
local stores have grown disproportionally large. Large enough to knock almost every other
store out of business. The establishment
of virtual monopolies (as Walmart) will give an impression of lower prices and
choice; but in fact this drives up prices, limits variety, and creates cheaper
quality products. Products most
necessarily become of less quality because suppliers and manufacturers are
bullied (as in the case for Walmart) into producing cheaper (thus less quality)
products. This is because manufacturer’s
also look to gain profit thus sacrificing quality for cost.
The
internet has brought about massive changes in world trade, and now your local
town shops are not the only choice for shoppers; now it’s the shops around the
world that are able to ship merchandise.
The cost of shipping has steadily decreased with more efficient
transportation methods, and has equaled or exceeded the efficiency of bulk
shipping and mass storage of merchandise.
By keeping the current mode of shopping; which is mainly going to stores
and rarely buying online, then this trade power of the internet is wasted.
We should
demand the growth and betterment of online shopping. The best way to do this is by using online
stores as much as possible. Demand
products from the seller of the best value products. Demand cheaper or free shipping and better
online products by refusing to buy from sellers that don’t allow rating or have
bad ratings. Quit going to conventional
stores unless absolutely necessary, which should be very minimal. This was, stores will begin to close, shrink,
or evolve to something that is less wasteful and more useful for society. Also, true worldwide trade should be
demanded; by this I mean demand products from every corner of the world, and eventually
production and shipping will expand to many more areas that will likely produce
better products due to specialization.
