Tag: shopping

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MIKE1 Comment
Florida Publix, February 2024

I used to return these shopping cart to the store. Not anymore.

One of our dog walking neighbors is Jewish and she turned us on to the idea of the Mitzvah. As she explained, it’s the act of doing (unrecognized?) good deeds daily. So on our dog walk we pick up trash around the neighborhood and at Publix we return some of the shopping carts.

It’s only some of the carts because this cart is exactly where it should be. It’s not in a coral or back at the store but it’s next to a handicap parking spot.

Sometimes people with handicap parking needs also have walking assistance needs. Hence the cart. The cart isn’t randomly there, it was purposely placed there by someone who “gets it”.

The same day as this picture, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz was on the Michael Shermer Shoe podcast.

He mentioned a viral tweet that got over a million impressions but only led to five book sales.

So much for “going viral”.

A few days later was Valentine’s Day.

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Be curious.

Wonder about oddities, like stray carts.

Be curious.

Think beyond the metrics, like tweet impressions.

Be curious.

Listen to your partner, what do they really want?

Be curious.

Shopping and Restocking Hot Sauce (jobs theory)

MIKELeave a comment

One part of Jobs theory, according to Bob and Greg, is the distinction between shopping and restocking.

shopping – evaluating choices

restocking – finding an item

Organizations must understand this because when market incumbents, (if this sounds related to disruption theory it’s because Bob was a colleague of Clayton Christensen), serve restockers they change nothing. If it’s not broke don’t fix it.

Whereas challengers need to break into the restocking mindset. They might articulate novel criteria: Our dips have no added sugar.

The incumbent’s dips may also be sugar-free, but the challenger creates the question and the incumbent responds.

Bob tells the story of shopping of needing a new shampoo and conditioner and making his choice because it was 2-in-1. It wasn’t the natural oils (or lack of). Nor was it how charitable the company was or the number of additives. It was convenience.

His original choice (the restocking) was unavailable and like the sugar-free hypothetical, Bob had to ask himself: What’s important?

Well, there’s this.

Take from July 2023, the shortage has proved to be a shopping “opportunity”.

We’ve settled on Tapatio (side-note: weird keychains, like this, are always a hit as gifts) and depending on how long the outages last, may switch from Tapatio shoppers to restockers

…

Related: hair care competes with haircuts. As Clayton Christensen wrote, your competition may not be in the same grocery aisle.