The Vanishing Serendipity of Retail Shopping

A timeline of retail shopping in America and abroad is an excellent vehicle for women of our cohort to chart their personal histories. Coming of age when individually owned shops prevailed, entering our prime during the age of the shopping mall, moving forward during the Big Box store revolution, and now aging during the dominance of online shopping have made us nimble, but not necessarily satisfied customers.

I’m a Retail Native

We all know about digital natives, but I could be described as a “retail native.”

I have spent a good amount of my life shopping for recreation and necessities. I count some of my favorite items as those found by serendipity through the years. For instance, I have an old polar fleece throw purchased in New England on a vacation in the 1980s, when that was the first location in the world where polar fleece was manufactured (Malden Mills).

I have a way-too-big, fine mesh colander which I bought at a small shop. I’ve repurposed it for my weekly fruit ripening ritual. I would never own an authentic Pendleton cross-body bag if I hadn’t accidentally found it at Marshall’s.

Most recently, searching for the perfect gift for my husband as a souvenir of a recent solo trip, I found a charming volume of baseball stories at an independent bookstore in Denver. None of those items could have been plucked easily from the millions of offerings online. The sad fact is that these events are becoming quite rare. Covid is somewhat to blame for our changes in shopping habits, but aging also plays a role. I’ve written about these ideas previously in my post, Have You Reset Your Shopping Habits?

The History of Shopping

Shopping has its roots in early humans bargaining with others in their sphere for items they did not have or those they needed. In the years before the common era (BCE), open markets and commercial centers in Rome, China and the Middle East flourished. These bazaars, on predictable days, persisted through Medieval times and morphed into permanent shops, arcades, mail order businesses, and more recently shopping malls and Big Box stores. The most recent iteration is online shopping, and its close cousin, a hybrid mix of brick and mortar stores coupled with tech services, or omnichannel shopping.

What Do the Numbers Say About Customer Preferences?

It is impossible to ignore the many retail chains which are closing their doors every week. With their passing, I would never have guessed that in the US, physical stores have an 81% share of the retail market. Currently, 45% of shoppers prefer brick and mortar stores, including a majority of baby boomers. 28% prefer online shopping, with younger folks enjoying both platforms. According to business.yougov.com, only 4% of shoppers always buy online, but only 3% only buy in person. The rest have a hybrid plan.

Most often, categories of goods determine the buying platform. 69% buy groceries in-store; 50% buy furniture in-store, but tech items are purchased by 36% online, and clothing is a mixed bag: 27% online, 35% in person, 33% purchase between the two.

How Is Merchandise Chosen for Large Online and Big Box Stores?

To understand why shopping isn’t nearly as much fun or serendipitous as it has been in our younger years, you need to understand the data driven universe of retail. AI and machine learning analyze customer and product data to automate and optimize retail processes. (How many retail “club tabs” do you have hanging from your keychain?)

There is an incessant hoovering of customer preferences and sales, which are then analyzed in terms of purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographic information to predict needed inventories. This is a far cry from your favorite store of the 70s or 80s, whose inventory was based on the owner’s individual aesthetic, which aligned perfectly with yours!

Data points relating to seasonal trends and other mathematical formulas offer up the correct quantity of inventory possessing the desired variety and depth. Such gyrations might lead you to that Target purchase which you can never repurchase in the future!

Luckily, all is not in the realm of predictive algorithms. The human value of “treasure hunting” encourages retailers to change up their products, create alluring displays, and send out those quasi-subliminal texts or emails about new products.

Why Are Shoppers Swimming Upstream in Search of Meaningful In-Store Shopping?

The human need for viewing, touching and interacting with physical products is probably hard wired in our DNA. That is the way our ancestors have been shopping for millennia, and the shopping experience can be enormously satisfying.

The hallmark of a successful shopping experience encourages the happy, accidental discovery. Shopping is a social event. One can be accompanied by friends or family, but at the very least there is an encounter with a store clerk who can provide needed assistance or some cordial interaction.

In their best form, shop displays offer a quality sensory experience through spatial design, craftsmanship, and an artisan culture. They can offer personalized service, curated products, and greater local emphasis. Shops can be a vital part of a community. There is also an immediate benefit to a purchase which has no wait time or shipping fees.

To me, the Big Box algorithms make a shopping experience more functional than fun. I’m not sure if my demographic was part of the data set which was harvested at a corporate location far from my home. I never find the selection of items as broad as they once were. Although we balked at the lack of toilet paper on the shelves during the pandemic, I find that I am more surprised when a store actually has what I need than when it doesn’t.

Shopping on the Horizon

I don’t think any of us are excited about the possibility of a drone dropping off packages at our front doors. As clever as AI is thought to be, I am not looking forward to sharing my shopping list with a neural network. I’ve got a perfectly functioning one myself.

As an older woman, I am thrilled to have an inventory of clothing and household items which could never be purchased in today’s market. Both the functional and decorative items are of uniform high quality, were chosen from a vast array that doesn’t exist today, and many evoke wonderful memories.

We will all need to shop regularly in the future. There are groceries to buy, broken items that need to be replaced, and we need reasons to leave the house. It just might be possible to recreate those nostalgic, serendipitous feelings when traveling, at flea markets and vintage stores, and shopping locally, as the last stakeholders try to hold on.

Promising behaviors by younger shoppers include the “No Buy Movement,” a desire to curb impulse shopping, reduce debt, and limit environmental impact. Communal events held in local stores are also a popular choice. Pledges by the young and old to only purchase used clothing, consume or grow organic food, and share unwanted items on the websites Freecycle or Facebook Marketing are all reactions to unsatisfying and compulsive shopping.

We are all consumers in one form or another. The delight of finding a unique item is not a pleasure which should be ejected. No doubt, there is a certain thrill in finding an item that perfectly hits the sweet spot of need and personal appreciation.

You may also like, What’s the Deal with Shopping Anyway?

Let’s Chat:

How has shopping changed over the course of your life? Do you have any ways to make shopping less functional and more fun? Do your age or physical condition dictate your shopping habits?