Anastasia Mironova About why the feeling of visiting Hypermarkets on Family Weekend in the Store has disappeared 29.12.2022, 08:13

Have you noticed that in large shopping malls, products and sometimes even equipment become more expensive than in small stores or just chain supermarkets like “near home”? Are online purchases sometimes more expensive than offline purchases? The most striking examples of this are sanitary pads and white paper, which are sold at the beginning of March for almost ten times what is sold on the stalls in the marketplaces. Since then, pasta, flour, cereals, the same pads, soap, all local products have become more expensive in large stores than in small ones …

Presumably then, in the spring, we experienced decisive pressure that led us to the old retail format, or at least a compromise with it. Something happened, at least a series of events that caused consumer goods in department stores to become more expensive.

Personally, it seems that our family does not go to the hypermarket for a long time, because now it is not only inconvenient, but also unprofitable. I always dream with horror that I’m driving back from a huge store and unloading it in the cold. Despite living in the countryside and visiting the city on average twice a week, we stopped going to hypermarkets. There is no reason left.

A trip to a large hypermarket is more difficult than three visits to a grocery store, and yet it does not replace them, because you need to buy at least fresh sour cream, bread, milk, if you do not produce it yourself.

We used to keep goats at home and bake bread. We always had our own butter, cottage cheese, cheese, sour cream, so we could rarely go to the store. Agree, a non-trivial fit for a city dweller, and even for most peasants: most goats do not do this.

Now we have sold ours but the bread machine is broken, it’s bad at baking. And suddenly I realized that the meaning of the trip to the hypermarket had completely disappeared. First, you’ll still need to buy something fresh for the little things. Secondly, I noticed a long time ago that pasta, oatmeal, dairy products in hypermarkets are becoming much more expensive than in small stores, albeit mesh. Finally, the assortment of goods as a whole has been reduced. If it still makes sense to go to hell to buy rare products and pay a little more for the same pasta, now it is significantly less, because the assortment has collapsed, the variety has disappeared due to the exotic, and the peculiarity of the business did not cause the hypernets to appear on the shelves of local products.

How about rushing to a shopping hypermarket before the traffic jam, wandering around the parking lot searching for a place for a long time, and then wandering down the aisle realizing that the products have been rearranged? Then get in line with a big car, roll it through the entire parking lot, unload for a long time, drive the car back, get into a traffic jam and carry food at home up to the fourth floor? We have our own house too: I drove out to the porch, turned on the spotlight in the garden and took care of the purchases, please. And it’s bleak, you’re thinking why did you get so many points again, you have to go to the grocery store one day anyway. Yes, I did not buy sour cream, milk, chicken because you know that a small shop sells several kinds of local products. I live near Veliky Novgorod, where there are no local products in the big chains, in one federal chain you can find Novgorod chickens, in the other – eggs and sour cream, more expensive than what we have in a village shop. A long time ago I started buying fruit and groceries in chain stores, albeit small, and dairy products, chicken, eggs in a small Novgorod grocery chain. Meat and fish should be bought at the market, bread – from the bakery. And all this no longer than loading a cart in a hypermarket, especially since you won’t be buying the same sour cream or bread for two weeks.

Previously, there was a sense: it turned out to be much cheaper in hypermarkets, and the choice turned out to be larger. And now, why does an ordinary man on the street tear himself up after work? And it’s good that the hypermarket is separate and not located in a big mall where you usually lose half a day shopping. How many families spend the weekend at the mall? It seems like you don’t really need to buy anything, but since you’ve come this far, you take both this and this and have lunch. You can’t leave the kids alone until evening, so they hang out with their parents. Day off at the store. This is the apotheosis of humiliating a person!

The format of the hypermarkets, where the small stores we once moved to, were relocated, was actually not very suitable. It is more convenient when there are small shops around with normal prices.

It is good that we have not reached the situation and probably do not have time to get to the situation, as in Finland, for example, where small shops have completely disappeared. Of the small ones, I’ve only seen chocolate kiosks there recently, the mini markets were only in the tourist area of ​​Helsinki. In the mid-2010s, the rest of the country bought products from hypermarkets, mostly located on the outskirts of cities.

But they say that in the last three years they have clearly abandoned this trend, local shops have appeared. Because it’s convenient. And if the price is the same, and even cheaper in small stores, then people will prefer them and not adultery in large retail areas …

And it’s the same with online commerce. I find it more and more misleading to buy time buying every little thing in the marketplaces. You spend time choosing, if you buy a new one, you read the comments. You read them especially carefully when ordering from China. If you buy clothes or shoes, you have to look at the reviews to see if the thing matches the size, especially when it comes to Chinese goods where everything is small.

I collected the basket and there is some kind of failure. Or you clicked on the wrong thing while paying – the cart was reset, so collect it again.

You still need to choose a delivery point, then find your phone, pay … After that, check where the order is for days, guess to catch. If it’s really close to home, it’s not much quicker than stopping by an actual store. Even a single review of a product, for example a blouse, in a store and in a market place, takes different times. It is enough to turn it in your hand for a second to see if it suits you in real life and if the material is good.

Online, you rotate the picture for a long time, enlarging it, trying to evaluate the quality of the fabrics. First, you open the comments with the photos and videos you watch carefully. Next, you search for reviews for the keywords “quality”, “spools”, “wrinkles”, “torn”. We actually spend a lot of time choosing clothes or cosmetics online. More than you would get in a real store.

But there are still coatings. For example, I recently ordered an earthenware pot, a large pressure cooker, and women’s boots, all in one. I got to the point of giving, bought, immediately tried on felt boots and found they were two sizes larger. denied. Cans were opened at home – they gave us the wrong pressure cooker. I wrote to chat to find out how to deliver because I haven’t gotten anything there yet. Of course I had to send a photo. I finally got a refund, my husband went to get the 11 liter pan. He went by bus with a pot in his hand because it snowed in a sea that day and the village administration did not clear our way for some reason.

By the way, for a long time the money for felt boots did not come, I wrote to support, the site could not understand why I paid one amount for the whole order, and the bank charged a completely different amount.

At the same time, I remember seeing the same felt boots in the Minsk Central Store and not buying them, deciding that they would be cheaper with us. But the price was the same. And, for example, my friends in St. Petersburg guarantee that they have seen these felt boots in a real shoe store for about the same price as online. If I lived in St. Petersburg, I would probably prefer to go to the store, try, this saves a lot of time … By the way, the earthen pot has already cracked, but I do not have the moral strength to deliver.

In retail, hyperscale is a so-called time saver. In reality, people spend a lot more shopping. They also get paid for any discounts, online promotions that need to be caught and tracked. Did you know that there are many applications on the networks that collect data on all shopping discounts? Think about how much time a person spends comparing prices and catching these discounts. This is another example of wasting a customer’s time by pretending to take care of him. Or “Find cheaper – we’ll sell for the same price.” How much do you have to search on the Internet to find the same felt boots for 300 rubles cheaper?

This includes various bonus cards linked to a phone number. For example, I have such a card in a hardware store. The scale of savings during intensive construction and repair is understandable, the card credits 5% of the purchase amount with bonuses. For this reason, even if you buy something for 10,000, it is useful to get a card or give your phone number. But if this is a cosmetics and household chemicals store that takes 1% of the payment, and the purchase of toothpaste, powder and hand cream does not attract a thousand, is it profitable to engage in such discounts? The average person in his wallet will have several tights, plates, maps of cosmetics stores. How many tights does he buy per year to register a card, give his phone number each time and get ten rubles from the purchase?

Almost all the phenomena that we have recently perceived as improving service and increasing our comfort seem to be eating up our time and effort.

What really happened in large retail, such processes have caused their pasta to become more expensive than a grocery store and sometimes even more expensive than a general store, but what has happened will certainly benefit us. A person should not spend half a day in a supermarket, the best and most convenient form of shopping is to chase after work to a grocery store and at the same time not overpay for comfort.

We can say with certainty that by the end of the year, visiting hypermarkets has ceased to be so profitable, at least for the buyer, in terms of money, and relieves discomfort. So, it’s time to return to a more comfortable format.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.