Aisle talk: The supply chain and mass retail, free or not so free market?!

Mass retail sucks! It used to be that retailers' focus was the customer's needs and trying to serve those needs. Retailers would pride themselves on getting the products that people wanted. Today, many make the same claim but in reality what they do is try to sell the stuff wholesalers and importers supply them with regardless of quality or customer needs. The supply chain is dominated by large importers and wholesalers who are completely disconnected from the customer, as such a supermarket for example can't serve the customer the way they should or would want to. The result of this is that supermarkets too have become part of the machinery of mass retail that is controlled by bulk buyers and wholesalers. 

Supermarkets developed tricks to try to sell crappy product to unsuspecting customers, they try to convince customers that they need a certain product when they really don't, they have become pushers working for an impersonal machinery of bulk trade. One trick is lighting at the vegetable section. Lighting can show for example certain leafy greens as being greener and fresher than they actually are. Another trick is the checkout line display: Look at the stands besides the checkout line in supermarkets, they're getting bigger and stocking more stuff, not just candies and cigarettes, but anything and everything you would not normally buy is now in front of you, calling to you, and you become a captive market as you wait in line for your turn to pay. 

Supermarkets rarely have what you need, or they might stock it one month and then it disappears from their shelves the next month, sometimes never to be seen again. Have you ever wondered who makes these decisions, certainly not supermarket owners who want to keep customers happy. Its most likely the powerful wholesalers that have ordered too much of a certain product and need to shift it, so they send plenty of that product to the supermarket and stop sending over the really popular products that customers want, forcing customers to buy the product wholesalers want them to buy. So, while in theory a capitalist system was supposed to allow us to choose where we shop and what we buy and in what quantities, in reality we live in a retail world that has more in common with a socialist command economy than a free market economy and its getting worse.

The resultant is that mass retail's utility to the customer has steadily diminished over time. Supermarkets noticed this and they have redoubled efforts to draw in customers with tricks like customer loyalty programs that keep you hooked on buying more stuff and accumulating points. But the true value of the gifts or rewards customers get for their loyalty is never objectively assessed. The fact remains, our supermarket list is jam packed with stuff we don't really need, but items we have gotten used to consuming and retailers convince us we can't live without. 

Every first week of every month we pile up our trolleys with packaged pseudo-foods that we feel satisfy a need deep within us. Our buying habits have been conditioned over the years and decades to keep us docile and compliant and buying stuff. It used to be that supermarkets were smaller, more neighborhood-based, the stuff they stocked was basic and wholesome, canned stuff and dry goods. Some supermarkets had the trusted neighborhood butcher on board as well, all had a vegetable and fruit section, and that was about it. There are still some businesses that follow this model but they are fast disappearing as people turn to the tantalizing promise of mass retail.