Innovations in shopping?
One of my father’s favorite jokes was about the telephone
company. “Someday, the telephone will get so advanced that all when you pick up
the receiver, someone at the other end will say, ‘number please.’”
This week at a technology meeting in Portland, the invited
speaker told about a supermarket chain in southern New England where you can
use special hand-held devices while shopping that scans your items as you put
it in your cart and when you get to the checkout you hand over the device and
the sale is already totaled up for you. This “shoppers’ convenience” was
imperfect, according to the speaker, who envisioned that a better device would
know where you were physically in the store and be able to offer you more
services as you shopped. I thought, well that will probably be available in the
next version.
Today, I read a NewYork Times article about Instacart,
a two-year-old grocery delivery start-up that is now available in some larger
US cities. The article explains, “When you buy groceries from Instacart, the company
summons a green-shirted ‘personal shopper’ through the firm’s smartphone app.
The shopper receives your list, scurries through a grocery store to pick up
your items and then heads across town in his own car to deliver your stuff.”
New idea?
Both these stories, and my father’s old joke had me
reflecting on my childhood in Brooklyn, NY and made me think that we were now
seeing was a re-invention of an old idea.
Myrtle Avenue, the business nexus of the Clinton Hill/FortGreen neighborhood where I spent my youth was a panoply of small businesses
that provided for the wants and needs of the tens of thousands of local citizens.
In those days, the large, one-stop-shop megastores and shopping malls were still
futuristic, albeit we did have a couple of smaller, locally-owned supermarkets
(Bohacks, A&P, and Key Food), but these carried a very limited line of
products and were tiny as compared to my 50,000 sq. ft. local Hannaford in
Augusta, Maine.
Competing in the next block of Myrtle Avenue were butcher
shops, bakeries, greengrocers (stores that sold fresh produce), drug stores, fish
markets, and hardware stores. In those days we had local clothing stores, shoe
stores, and even a store that sold notions – whatever they are. There were also
a host of smaller grocery stores and delicatessens that even had prepared
foods. Add to that several smaller restaurants and pizzerias.
And all these stores “picked out” your item and offered free
local delivery.
Add to this list, the local Laundromat, several dry
cleaners, liquor stores, and even a florist. They all delivered and many of
them offered free credit to local customers. This was a time before revolving
credit cards. I think my father got his first Uni-Card (later to become VISA) in
the mid-1960s. Many neighbors would purchase their daily groceries, have them
delivered and pay off their bill at the end of the month. In many cases, we
would pay the delivery guy with cash and he would even make change (“Make sure
you tell that when you call in the order to bring change for a ten!”).
Yes, I think we have gone in a full circle. Number please!
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Photo credit: Found on line at New Yorks Past
