For me, one of the most annoying things about shopping in stores is that I’m forced to drive to a big box store like Target or Walmart because they’ve forced the local stores out of business, destroying traditional downtowns and walkable neighborhoods and making people need a car to get anywhere. Did they fix that?
I go to Europe and I see people just living in the normal areas and outside of the tourist. Zones. They look relatively happy, they don’t smile insincerely and they look healthier. Very few people are obese. Just your few grandmas, may be a few of them, but that’s it. I’m not trying to fat shame. It’s actually to the contrary. The stress levels of these horribly paid jobs and the crap food that people have to consume to survive is what makes us so unhealthy. I go to the thrift store. I buy stuff at the thrift store. Sometimes it’s better quality. There is so much shit in America. Useless shit. And you can’t blame China because somebody’s in charge of importing this garbage. And when we had more markets that were open and not overpriced, we could get better quality if we knew what we were doing. Just remember, when they try to blame China, there is some douchebag on a computer, weighing out the cost benefit ratio, and always going to the lowest common denominator, which is fucking you. You can’t just rely on people to do the right thing, especially when you live in a culture that just robs and steals from each other. We are so individualistic, it’s disgusting. I feel like it’s 28 days later and I’m the character laying in the grass. You know, in the midst of a zombie apocalypse and I look up in the sky and I see a plane flyover. It’s like the rest of the world is just moving on while we in America are on a whole other journey.
The fix is to move to a super expensive walkable neighborhood in the city that everyone wants to live in and no one can afford
The fix is to legalize the construction of more of these walkable neighbourhoods which are the most desirable places to live (so developers could make a lot of money with relatively small plots of land) yet are illegal to build because city governments have regulated them into oblivion.
https://ilsr.org/articles/robinson-patman-groceries-atlantic/
Someone on here pointed me to this excellent article.
<s> As with so many wonderful things in the US and the rest of the planet, it can be traced to Reagan era successes in the class war. </s>
Great article, thank you for sharing.
and they never have exactly what you need either. the number of times i’ve come home empty handed and had to buy online anyway is rediculous
Were those little stores actually affordable to people on the bottom half of the income scale? Grocery stores are a great example. I would go bankrupt trying to shop for groceries at the corner store. People complain about the chains but I don’t recall small grocery stores ever being affordable.
It’s true they can charge cheaper prices, and that’s why they’re able to put other stores out of business. The problem is, there are a lot of large-scale negative effects, but the decision of shopping there is usually beneficial on an individual level. It’s the “tragedy of the commons”.
According to the article, independent grocery stores were only 1% more expensive than the chains when the act was being enforced.
I got love coffee. One of my favorite coffee places is this place called Upper Cup in Columbus, Ohio. I order beans from them, and I was able to talk to the owner. He didn’t seem like an anti-social, and when he told me he inspects the farms from time to time and sees who he imports from, so it’s ethically sourced, I believed him. Let’s just say he’s a lying bastard and I was fooled. His coffee is still better than Starbucks. I hated Starbucks before it was cool. I hated Tesla before it was cool and it wasn’t because there were a bunch of genocideers. It’s because they’re trash. They’re absolute trash. The issue is the herd mentality. Yet we are rugged individuals and very selfish as a culture. For some reason, this type of mentality ends up creating a herd which is contrary to what their own self-perception is. I think it’s just a collective self-hate that’s going on here and people too stupid to see. It’s a motherfucking paradox.
And on top of this, we have to ring up and bag our own stuff now. There’s always a line because someone doesn’t know how to use the machine.
Or the machine is having some type of stupid issues. I didn’t take anything off your stupid platform, why is the scale throwing a fucken fit?
“Did you bring your own bags?” “Yes.” “Please place bags in the bagging area… UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA!”
Oh you’re trying to buy alcohol? Let me stop and fetch a human person to check you’re old enough. Siiiiigh.
I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten out of Home Depot without requiring assistance from the self checkout monitoring person. Their machines are horrendous.
In my last few trips to the local Home Depot, the self checkout machines have worked fine but the human helpers have insisted on being helpful. They’re fine though, lol.
I swear Home Depot and Lowe’s are the fucking worst when it comes to their checkout. That alone makes me go to a local hardware store let alone the fact that they know what I need most of the time.
Long lines at one register because they don’t have enough employees in store to check people out? I walked out of CVS the other day because I couldn’t justify standing around for 15 minutes to buy a drink.
Thank your local corporate consultant and CEO. They have had every incentive to cut staff and increase prices to get paid and have a bigger bonus.
just walk out with it bro nobody there is paid to give a fuck
Somehow CVS always has broken self-checkout and needs the most store personnel to operate self checkout.
And it just doesn’t work. Somehow it’s never smooth or reliable. That’s the one store where the cashier has the most advantage - I’d use the cashier every time if it weren’t for all the store staff trying to push customers to self-checkout.
CVS is a shady company anyway. They sell homeopathic bullshit at the pharmacy. I remember seeing them selling bags of salt as a cure for asthma. Nope, I’m out.
They don’t even actually sell those all that often enough to justify them taking up shelf space.
Most chain pharmacies sell this stuff because they can make a buck off it. At least CVS stopped selling nicotine products aside from cessation stuff, unlike Walgreens. I don’t know about other chains and how they compare.
The clickbait works… what does this article claim is one of the most annoying things? I must know!
Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express have either already stopped or will soon no longer require customers to sign their receipts when checking out.
Who the hell makes customers sign the receipt? I’ve only seen an employee sign it, and that’s for a return/refund.
I think they mean digitally signing on the pad, which it does every time a card is run as credit.
Which means I won’t be able to draw my little house anymore :(
I draw a dick.
You guys don’t just use tap?
Whenever a business allows for it, yes. Walmart is a big one that does not
I was in the states a couple years ago and they were using cards like in the nineties. When paying at a restaurant they take it, then come back with the bill, you write the tip and sign it, and then is charged… my European (visa!) cards didn’t like that shit one bit and would get rejected half the times.
Over here, for the Americans, the server brings you the bill, if they don’t already bring the terminal you tell them you’re going to pay with a card. They enter the price, you put your phone or card close to it, they ask ‘d’ya want the ticket?’ ‘No, thanks’ ‘ok thank you! Have a nice day!’.
I’m curious where in the states you were? I live in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota and it’s tap to pay all over. To the point where I’m surprised to find a place now where I can’t tap to pay.
Some exceptions exist, like restaurants that are using old POS systems but we see a lot more of the table side devices being used, some with tap to pay.
I’m always amused by the accurate double meaning of POS.
In my experience, if they take your card away to run it at a restaurant than POS only has one meaning because it’s probably some old Aloha piece of shit system their using.
If you want to tip, you leave a one euro coin at the table.
Generally people don’t.
I used to do the ‘keep the change’ thing but I don’t pay much in cash anymore. I do tip (in cash of course, always in cash) deliveries in bad weather tho.
In the US not so much. If the tap thing exists and is working… We’re already used to chip (not chip and pin). I assume by now most are chip… Chip cards usually can’t swipe unless extra steps.
Spent a minute in the UK and tapping was so convenient.
(not chip and pin)
I agree, Fish and Cushion are where it’s at. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S0ndZt4R_w
Yeah I don’t understand any of this. I just tap and that’s it. Is this article from 1987? I remember my parents let me put a GI Joe truck on layaway at Jemco to teach me something about finances. Is layaway still a thing?
Training issue. Too often you still need to sign. Even when the receipt clearly says “no signature required”, you still get asked to sign
I’ve had to sign on tap before, though it is less frequent. Tap to pay is fairly new here in the US and there’re still odd holdovers like that
Some places do but swipe and sign is still pipular here. Chip and tap are catching on but most places have all 3
I HATED when tapping some cards brought up the signature…
I only ever get asked to sign the receipt at small, local stores.
Just USian things.
https://wallethub.com/edu/cc/chip-and-pin-vs-chip-and-signature/25668
Same my entire adult life I don’t think I have ever signed one.
Only time I had to sign was when I got cash at the register.
Even typing in the PIN Is so rare that it usually catches me off guard when I have to do it nowadays.
An annoying thing which has been identified by 2 of the biggest corporations around? For all we know it’s changing the “wet floor” signs to be more noticeable.
Bait is always less interesting than it advertises.
Honestly a good rule to live by. If it were really that outstandingly annoying, they’d just say what it is in the title knowing that it would drive clicks from people who would think “Oh my god, I hated that!”
We need an attendant on the dildo and shaving isle! A customer has a question on the vibration and battery life. Beth, that’s probably a you question!
The fact that they keep condoms locked up is obnoxious and stupid. Some teenager is not going to feel comfortable pressing that button and standing next to the condoms while waiting 20 minutes for someone to notice them. They’re just going to knock up their girlfriend instead.
https://ilsr.org/articles/robinson-patman-groceries-atlantic/
Someone on here pointed me to this excellent article.
<s> As with so many wonderful things in the US and the rest of the planet, it can be traced to Reagan era successes in the class war. </s>
Why not link to the actual article?
With the shit Walmart is selling it’s actually not far from the truth.
Wow, they’re closing all their stores?
Thats some funny shit.
You know how this simulation is already fucked, it’s be cool to have an Infinite Walmart [SCP-3008-W?]
“The store is now closed, get the fuck out of the building karen!”
