Shopping Habits

Shopping Habits ©

By Michael Casey

I am a shopper, we are all shoppers, otherwise we’d all die, not unless you have pizza and Chinese delivered, but then you’d grow so fat that you couldn’t leave the house, except with the help of a fork lift truck. So we all go shopping, to feed ourselves and to clothe ourselves.

This is then described as the “shopping experience” by marketing men in magazines such as the Grocer, the fact that those men never go shopping and have everything delivered by Ocado and have never seen a man in a pinny in their lives is by the by. Marketing is king, though it’s the queens in our lives who do most shopping, by which I mean our mums and our wives, though queens do go shopping too, I’m sure I’ve seen Lizzy down Aldi once, their bargains are so tempting after all.

I could say at this point that I worked for ACNielsen for two decades, which is BS speak that you put on a CV. I was in the computer room, shovelling data and printout, so I knew nothing about market research as it is called. Though you do pick up a bit to a lot just by talking to those who really do know what they are doing, KJ, MF and TS to name but 3.

TS was a really nice man and I regret I didn’t gossip more to him over the years. This time in 1987 I mentioned an idea to KJ about The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, and see now all these years on, nearly 30 years on I’m still boring you the readers about it.

Where was I, oh yeah, with my hand in the bargain basket, a bit like James Herriot with his arm up a cow’s bum. You have to ferret around to find the odd bargain or two. A week after this week’s special bargain you get the real bargain, the item has been reduced in price, they have to clear their stocks after all.

In my local Aldi the pretty little Indian boss goes around with a taser, well it looks like a taser, so I never give her any lip, just in case. It is in fact a hand held computer for counting stock, though it might be a taser, so I’ve never been brave enough to ask. So they clear out the bargains which have not been sold. I got half price socks that way, and they are really really warm, I’m wearing them now as I talk to you. Though I have missed out on other bargains because the rest of Birmingham did not wait.

Shoppers are classed into groups, what kind of people are they. Do they shop regularly, do they do a huge weekly shop, are they bargain hunters. Yes I am a bargain hunter, and I shop daily and sometime twice daily. I have to get my exercise in after my operation, and I cannot carry as much as I once did. Bypass and Arthritis does that to you, but at least it gives me the chance to try a new joke out on the staff.

You can try new things when you see a bargain in the shops, and if it’s horrible Totoro the cat will always eat it, or the children depending how slow the girls are when I offer them my slops. Shops like the Coop have really nice stuff, overpriced, but very nice. As they sell the lotto in their shop I occasionally drop by, then I tour the aisles, like a store detective, ok they think I’m a shoplifter, till I turn around and they know it’s me, the fat old white haired guy, the George Clooney look alike. I am his body double after all, ask his wife if you don’t believe me. Anyway they do occasionally have ½ price items, like the fish I have in my fridge, which I’ll be eating soon.

Specialist shops have died out, the butcher the baker and the undertaker used to be on every high street, ok not so many undertakers, but the other two. Now big stores have consumed the small sole trader shop. From a shopping point of view it is cheaper, but from a neighbourhood point of view it’s not as nice. Spirit has disappeared from the high street. I don’t think you can ever turn back the clock, maybe only in fiction will you rediscover it, read the butcher the baker and the undertaker perhaps.

Having said that Spirit can be injected if we decide to break convention and ignore the security cameras. In one store “darling” has made a comeback, I even get called darling by female staff, which does my ego a power of good. If you make the atmosphere like an outdoor market but indoors in the shop then the staff are happier, and the shoppers are happier too. The vibe, the buzz is better, so this step backwards is in fact a step forward, and we all dance and the tills ring. Strictly ballroom if you like, or you could read my play Shoplife.

Christmas is but a month away, so I assume mums and dads are buying stuff ready for Christmas, if you really really like the much too rich food then the bargains begin immediately afterwards. Christmas cards will be so cheap after Christmas, as will a bird stuffed into a turkey stuffed into a sheep stuffed into a cow, a special multi roast, just for Christmas. There was an old Val Doonican song along those lines, swallowed instead of stuffed, I’m sure it’s on Google somewhere.

After Christmas all the obscure triple strength beer and wine concoctions will be ½ price, you may be able to use some of them to creosote your fence with, it would be safer that way. But the true Christmas spirit is the friends you have in your local store, in your pub and in your club, and not forgetting the good friends in your street and others you may meet. So don’t forget to send them all a Christmas card with a p.s. telling them when the Aldi post Christmas sale starts.