The cost of “free” parking is added to the prices the store charges. It’s better to unbundle these costs — an urban parking space can cost over $50,000 to build. That’s not cheap, and will materially impact rents and the price consumers have to pay.
You could attempt to unbundle that by charging people an entry fee too.
Why not itemise the electricity bill whilst you're at it, etc.
It's penny pinching and adds friction. I've been to Trader Joe's, if you're going there you're not at all price sensitive.
You need a system to avoid people using the car park as long term car storage or for commuting, that's it.
At least where I live, Trader Joe's is probably the cheapest grocer that isn't explicitly a discount retailer like Grocery Outlet. Something like 80% of TJ products are house brands.
The cost of parking is avoidable. You don't have to drive and park to buy goods in the store. Why should I that walk or bicycle to the store sponsor you driving and parking by paying higher prices so you can park for free?
If you're not paying more for your shopping in an urban location then this is almost always going to be because the costs are amortized over all the stores in a chain.
There is no free lunch, someone ends up paying more than they should somewhere.
Sure, charging an entry fee might make sense if people were hanging out in say a cafe, without buying anything, it was really full and the rent was really high. I've heard that such places exist.
Over here, paying for parking has gotten really easy in the last five years, I think two apps, both work great: Easypark for streets and parking lots, and Moovit for malls. Moovit works automatically with license plate cameras in mall garages and charges you those minimal amounts. Moovit is a completely automatic thing, once you've installed the app, added your credit card and license plate, you never have to touch it again.
None of what you've written sounds convenient, it sounds like a massive pain in the arse. If I do have to pay, I'd rather just stick some cash in a machine on the way out, paying for the time I used then and there and making it impossible to be fined or get stuck messing about with an app when something inevitably goes down.
Cashless systems for physical places should honestly be illegal, it would fix a lot of this scammy nonsense.
The first hour free also means the pedestrian shoppers are most of the time subsidizing my parking. The mall is on top of a train station and multiple tram lines, so there are a lot of pedestrians. The mall is for the large part just restaurants. There is absolutely massive parking garage going multiple levels deep underground, and they are mostly empty.
I wish street parking was also more automated, maybe it would be good if you would get a notification "this will cost X per hour". Parking ticket because you forgot to tap your app is not fun.
Better... for who? I don't know if it's better for either business or society, but it's better for me because I walk to the grocery store and never take my car. If the price of parking is unbundled from the price of food, then I don't have to pay for something I'm not using.
There's no free lunch either way here.
It's somewhat amazing how entitled many car drivers feel to be able to use up space and not having to pay rent for it.
I don't think urban parking makes sense (other than parking in/outside of homes).
You should look up the specific Trader Joe's the article is talking about on google maps. It's smack in the middle of Hollywood, within walking distance of numerous businesses and tourist attractions. Expecting free parking in that neighborhood is completely unreasonable.
The gist is that we use more parking than would be societally optimal because it's “free”, which really just means that non-drivers subsidize drivers. It would be like if every restaurant were expected to be all-you-can-eat: we'd societally consume more food than was optimal.