Time Poverty is Killing Brick and Mortar NOT Amazon

Seriously. If I read ONE MORE post blaming online shopping for the failures of brick and mortars, I may scream loud enough for China to hear me through my Wifi.  Brick and mortars are failing for the same reason “fast food” and “online” shops are increasing. Why? Two words:  Time Poverty.

Think about it.  The post office is not failing because of Amazon, there are a host of reasons including their insane pension requirements, but another is the lack of “snail” mail consumers send. Why? Because you can email blast 10,000+ people with an email much faster than it would take you to hand address, stamp and stuff envelopes.  Let alone the postage fees on that many letters.  How many books of stamps do you go through? It saves so much time doing bills online, scheduling them for autopay, why bother with the old-fashioned method.  YOU and ME, our shift to convenience and speed is killing the post office. Not Amazon. Sure, Amazon stepped in and provided a service we needed, we can’t fault them for that. And actually, by Amazon using the USPS for shipping, they are helping them, giving them work.

Retail, same.  TIME POVERTY is killing retail stores, that and the consumers desire for “what we want when we want it,” entitled are we.  Plus, have you looked at a rack in a retail store? In order to suit everyone, the store must offer one shirt in many sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL).  So for one shirt, that can be 6 choices and you can’t just have one medium, you have to have several. And then color choice. Imagine shoes… my gosh, the number you need to stock. Add inventory to utilities, rent, insurance, payroll, OY it is amazing any stores are open.  Stores cannot possibly cater to consumers that expect them to have the size, color, and price of every item picky consumers want. And yet, they try, and that expense is killing them.

And consumers are poor, time poor.  What is time poverty? I am struggling from it daily.  Assume you work an 8hour day.  Maybe sleep 5.  Take time for breakfast, or a fast coffee, dinner and maybe watch an hour of Netflix or read a bit.  Your 24 hours is spent before you wake-up. If you have kids, hobbies, pets, church, volunteer, several hours a day are devoted to those things. You barely have time to toss something in the Instant Pot (again a convenience tool).  You may have money, but no time to be a consumer. So you can order pizza on a Friday instead of making one from scratch, or run to Subway or some other fast food place because it is faster, it saves time, and time is precious.

 

If you don’t work or are underemployed, you may have poverty + time poverty a double edged sword. Living on a tight budget is not only stressful, if you constantly have to worry about what you are spending or have to juggle when bills get paid and how, your time is sucked up just in living.

Not having time is why online shopping works.  If you can do all your holiday shopping on your lunch break or (shhhhh at work), you will.  Because you don’t have time to wander around a shopping center or mall looking for just the right gift. You can google “gift for 12yo girls” and get all kinds of ideas in minutes online.  And that…. that is golden.  That is why we choose online over brick and mortar.
Where I live, the nearest mall is thirty minutes away, it is failing.  For me to go, that is one hour of driving, combined with shopping time and dining, that means I can’t go on a school night because with homework and sports that is impossible, means my “shopping” is limited to weekends. And weekends are times for house chores, for grocery shopping, for yard work, for a little rest.

So while dining out or streaming movies may fit in my schedule, physically shopping does not.  But I can get up at 6AM have coffee and buy birthday gifts for my niece, grad gifts for a friend, wedding registry items, all while in my PJs. Time poverty does that. Time poverty makes online shopping thrive.  WE created a culture where time is lost so we jump at things that offer convenience.  Amazon does that, Etsy does that, Google does that. Heck, it is faster to google than use an encyclopedia. We are not lazy, we are just time poor.  We still need to buy gifts for things, we need charms for mother’s day, gifts for birthdays, and we need to admit that WE the consumers and our habits are changing the fact of retail, not online stores, no one is to blame but us and our passion for convenience.