It's time to turn shopping upside down and right side up!
Purpose: To provoke you to rethink the way you go shopping.
I hate shopping. I hate walking around from shop to shop looking for things I want or need. After a mere couple of hours of shopping, I am drained of energy and feel like a deer in headlight. Shopping is a severely disorientating event for me.
I ask myself, why? Why does shopping drain me? Why does it sap my energy? Lastly, am I alone in this, or can you relate?
Here are some of my thoughts on the matter. You may agree or disagree. Either way, I hope for this to provoke thoughts into the way we shop.
Walk into two houses.
Time to use your imagination
Imagine yourself walking into two houses. Both houses are the same, they differ only in their contents.
Both houses greet you with high ceilings, wooden floors, copious amounts of space, large windows creating space for sunlight to stream through. They differ only in their contents.
You walk into the first house, immediately you notice how uncluttered it is, there are few objects. Just like the other house, there is a high ceiling, wooden flooring, large windows with sunlight streaming forth. Save from a couch set and a few simple pictures the room is bare.
Now you walk into the second house, here you can't miss the clutter. Again there is the high ceiling, wooden flooring and large windows. However this time there is more stuff. Much more stuff. There are shelves with all sorts of odds and ends, souvenirs from around the globe, books on every topic under the sun. There is a fish tank sitting alongside a bird cage. There is a cupboard housing all of the food for these pets. There is a slew of magazines on the coffee table. The sun is doing its best to peep through the windows but all of the stuff is blocking it out.
Can you feel the difference between the two houses? Same house, different contents. Does one feel fresh and clean, inviting you in with its lack of stuff? Does the other repel you with its overabundance of stuff, cluttering all of the space?
Why are we, human beings, attracted to places that are clean and fresh, lacking copious amounts of 'stuff'? Conversely, why are we repelled when we walk into places that have too much 'stuff'? Same place, different stuff. Same space, different contents. Could contents and items really make such a big difference?
I am not a scientist, nor a psychiatrist, but I would like to propose an idea which resonates with me. It may also resonate with you.
'Stuff' nibbles away at your energy.
Everything around you gets noticed. We, humans, constantly scan and process all the information around us. We process the information to bring sense and order to our surroundings. A picture of our surrounding is created by our brain constantly working in the background painting that picture. Every object gets painted into the picture.
'Stuff' sucks your energy. There is brain drain going on with every item that surrounds you. Without you being consciously aware of it the more things there are in a room the more things your brain has to process. The more things there are in a room the more exhausted you become. A cluttered room is a recipe for sapped energy and exhaustion. Each and every additional item literally sucks the life force out of you.
Applied to shopping.
When you walk into stores the same thing occurs. You walk in with intention, intention to buy specific items. You walk in with purpose, a goal. What greets you is a slew of redundant items inviting you to play a game of visual and mental obstacle course. All of those redundant items sap precious energy from you.
It is no surprise that I am exhausted after shopping. Every extra item in my house drains my energy. The store puts hundreds of extra items in front of me which drains my energy -- cubed. Store shopping = energy sapping^3.
Wouldn't it be nice...
Wouldn't it be nice if I could walk into a store and they presented just the objects I wanted?
Wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to walk aimlessly from aisle to aisle looking for what I really want? Or better yet, flit from store to store when one store doesn't have the item I wanted in stock? Or they don't stock it at all?
You may tell me, “Aron, it sounds like a great idea, but, it is not economical. It doesn’t have economies of scale and such a store would never be able to compete in price. Even if you could come up with a way for a store to stock just the things each consumer wanted – which is an impossibility on its own right – I would rather the energy sapping of all of the items as opposed to the hefty prices I would have to pay to shop at such a store!”
You are right. However my intent here is not to suggest making a store like that. Rather my intention here is to bring to your attention a problem that shopping brings. My intention here is to provoke and challenge your thoughts into the way we shop.
Wouldn’t it be nice if I didn’t have to go shopping for things, but things would go shopping for me?
Thanks for attention. If this article resonates within you and you are interested in testing out something that may solve this problem. Please email me or call me at agrinshtein@gmail.com or 078 725 4358.
