Reflections on a supermarket

Samizdata (Johnathan Pearce) offers some interesting reflections on a supermarket

"I say that if small stores are indeed being forced under, it has more to do with the burdens of regulation and tax which necessarily weigh more heavily on small firms than on larger, more established ones."

Possible explanation but from my experience I'd suggest that small stores with limited stock and higher prices cannot compete ---except on the basis of convenience --- that carton of cigarettes or milk --- with the marvelous display offered by some chains, such as the one described in the post. If there is a culprit --- and it escapes me why everything must have one, sometimes there is simply evolution --- it is the consumer who demands choice, convenience, style and amusement in even the most mundane matters such as shopping for mustard.

UPDATE: And don't miss Michael Jennings starting with supermarkets and ending with the productivity paradox.

The changing dynamics of shopping, should anyone wonder why I am linking, are directly related to urban form, the vitality of shopping districts etc etc. Food is one of the few daily essentials. The size of the store in which we purchase it has a direct connection, for example, to our use of cars etc etc. So acknowledgement of the structural superiority of the supermarket --- NO! the corner grocery has disappeared neither because of wicked government regulation nor because of wicked predatory corporations --- is an essential for neighborhood planning.

Comments

[Rich]

I agree that issues of product variety and stock are more significant than regulations and the like. But there is more to this discussion. There are two trends at work here. One is that people have been shopping more at large stores (in terms of size) and the other is that they are shopping more at chain stores. Often these are the same thing, as in I moved from spending money at the local "Home Cash Market" (a small, indepedent store, and really the name of a store on my block once) to "Safeway" (a large chain) when I got a car in San Francisco.

But actually these are two distinct trends, and I think that we will soon see some changes in this trend, at least in densely populated areas. In the past maintaining a large variety of products in limited space was impossible to manage. It would require less of each product can be on hand (both in front and in the limited warehouse space). With less quantity on hand insuring that supply was always available to consumers would be difficult, and smaller stores simply chose to use limited space to make sure that the convience items were always available.

However things are changing with the use of information technology to manage the supply chain. In London Sainsbury's (a supermarket chain) is opening small Sainbury Local stores in areas that are underserved by Supermarkets. These stores use a space similar to a convience store (with less storage space and more retail space) but are able to have a much wider selection of products. It is my guess that this is made possible by frequent deliveries of exactly the products that the store is running short of. I think this is all done automatically as each time a good is scanned out of the store it is registered in the inventory and when supplies reach a certain level replacements are put on the next truck that is headed to the store (of which there are several each day).

This entire system would be nearly impossible without a computer constantly tracking and communicating inventory.

This is all very cool, but how does this relate to the built environment? One of the difficulties of living in a city is getting access to the variety of products available in a suburban supermarket. When I lived in the North End of Boston I would either have the choice of speciality Italian goods or limited convience store selections, but anything in between was challenging given that owning a car was nearly impossible. With the ability to locate supermarket-like selection in that neighborhood one more inconvience of the neighborhood is removed, its other positives become more important, and more people are willing to live in such areas.

Now these new stores are not likely to be independent, but that is not as relevant as the fact that they can be small and located in densely populated areas.