Hacker News Reader

Comment by HCIdivision17 | Hacker News Reader

I can't see why - the sales clerks at brick and mortar stores do the same thing. Like, if I went to a bike shop they would make off-handed remarks about someone buying a certain style helmet recently or perhaps emphasize the DOT rating (instead of the lacking Snell). Seems natural.

View on HN

It depends. I have two supermarkets within about a similar distance, a Safeway and Trader Joe's. Safeway has all branded goods, a larger selection, they send coupons to my mailbox every week (a very common form of marketing in the US, for people who live elsewhere), and they have a store loyalty card I'm encouraged to pull out every time I go. They are always having sales and special offers and so on. Trader Joes send me brochure about once a month talking about what they have that I might want to buy, most of the good are under their own house brand (often just relabeled versions of brand products), they never give any discounts and they have no store loyalty card, plus the supermarket is smaller and the selection is inferior in terms of # of goods on sale. And they sometimes run out of a particular thing for a week or two and if they don't have they just don't have it. And they're probably a bit more expensive, like 5-10%.

However, I do most of my grocery shopping there, notwithstanding the disadvantages. The reason why is because I can concentrate on choosing the actual things I want to eat or otherwise consume on their own merits, whereas if I go to the Safeway I'm constantly bombarded with over-engineered promotional messages and in encouraged to focus on this week's special offer!!! and so on. The time spent figuring out how to get the best deal is IMHO often worth more than the amount of money you save in the process, and it shifts the focus of my attention from what I want to what the store has too much of and wants to get off the shelves, ie it substitutes the store's economic interest for my own. Now, of course sometimes I go to Safeway to pick up particular goods or if they have some especially enticing offer, or if I need something that's not available or good value at the other store. But I try to limit my Safeway visits to less than one a month, and when I do go it's with a very narrow agenda, ie I go specifically to purchase a small number of specific items and get out as fast as possible, rather than drifting around the aisles throwing this that and the other into the cart. It's a mentally toxic environment for me, whereas at the smaller supermarket I sort of enjoy doing the grocery shopping and I know quite a few of the people who work there by name.

Both stores are engaged in marketing - getting me to fork over money in exchange for consumables - but I much prefer the one that emphasizes a general level of quality and good value for the products on offer over the one that emphasizes endless choice, limited-time offers, and cart optimization ('buy 3 get 1 free' etc.).

With Trader Joe's it seems you could trust them to have done the curating for you. That is you might not like the taste of some products, but you wouldn't get something absolutely horrible. That is you wouldn't get something which pretended to be health but is absolutely not.

With other supermarkets you have to really check the ingredients and even then you might get taken for a ride.

That is a huge cognitive load to deal with if you know how, and even worse deal if you do not know how to find decent products.

Intentionally deceptive communication is evil in brick-and-mortar stores too. That's one of the reasons that many people prefer online shopping -- to escape aggressive and manipulative salespeople.

If often pitch our product as "the online equivalent of a good 'offline' sales person".

An 'offline' sales person also makes a judgement and tailors it's story to that judgement. How does the customer look, what are his questions, what can I upsell, etc etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com