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Comment by mgkimsal | Hacker News Reader

Worked in a mall in the 90s and thought a store that let people 'shop' but not actually pay money for things might be fun/useful. Or... sort of like a membership. $10/month, come in to some luxury type store - browse, test out stuff, etc. Go through a 'checkout' step with your 'store card', just... leave the items in the store as you leave. For some folks, the leaving and driving away is the 'high', but for a lot of folks, the 'purchase' itself is the high, and it's downhill after that. I saw so many people buying things they shouldn't buy - and that was over 30 years ago(!). I know it's only become worse over the years.

FWIW - my idea was possibly sort of dumb, but I was a bit of a dumb kid at times... :)

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I do this all the time with online shops: fill the cart with things, come back later or after a couple of days and I don't check out because I feel I was dumb for wanting that stuff.

That's how I do my online grocery shopping - I fill the cart with things that are interesting, needed, etc., and when I'm ready to actually buy, I empty the cart and fill it with the things I actually need. Many times, what seemed like a good idea was, in later reflection, not such a good idea.

There are utilities to your idea and by that virtue, Just Buy Nothing. With a bit of contributed enhancements this could actually solve a niche problem.

I'm already imagining a situation where you can opt in for a discovery/assessment after checkout; each item is assessed for utility of need vs want and whether a smaller or less expensive replacement could meet the same needs.

At the end of this, a user could come off with a smaller basket that they could then take to a real shopping site and or be charged for the session. Privacy has to be nailed quickly though.

Closing remarks:

AI could help in the aspect of scaling the discovery/analysis with users.

This was about 15 minutes of thought. There's something here for sure.

I like this idea a lot. Been working a ton on the site to get it to where it is today and make updates based on user feedback.

AI has been helping me create product images. Right now I have it limited to 150 products on the site at the time. I originally had 1K+ and realized that cloudinary is very expensive. It provides the best user experience but had to cut back a bit for now to not break my own wallet.

you can even put some empty boxes in bags for them to carry out

Just replace "leave the items at the store" with debt, buy-now-pay-later or "30 days return" guarantees and you have a business idea! Car culture and oversized suburban homes even absolve you from the pain of carrying things you don't need, and finding storage space for them.

It is a win for the economy!

And if you need to free up storage space, dispose for free, it's societies responsibility!

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