Going local?

I just read a Tweet to the effect that Target has placed its products on Instagram Checkout (whatever that is). While we were out this morning doing essential errands I saw an electric sign at the  credit union that people can deposit their checks via a mobile app. (Some of the essential errands involved depositing checks, plus getting some cash.) I started pondering about  the longer term implications of moving as much of our lives into the  online universe as we're proceeding to do. If banks need fewer, or none, branch offices; if big box stores all move online; what happens to the local property tax base? Will there be a retail version of Rust Belt cities?

storefront window at the Open Book building

Photo by J. Harrington

I've long been an advocate of shopping local. Even after an annoying sequence of events today, I'm still of that mind, but more open to a "Both,  And" approach. Our local poison ivy vines are emerging with vigor. Spraying them with ordinary grass killer seems to be equivalent to offering them Gatorade instead of the infamous Jamestown kool aid. Of two local hardware stores, one local farm and garden shop, and two nearby big box chain outlets, only one had in stock the product I wanted and even that was a second choice option. No one had what I really wanted in the container I wanted it in. Even Amazon noted that they'd send me an email if it came back in stock. So, I came as close as I could to buying local but was forced into a big box to do so. Every place I checked in person had multiple types and brands of grass killer still sitting on their shelves, but not poison ivy killer in the size and disposal option I wanted. Most web sites offered an order online deliver to store or home with various wait times and / or delivery fees or both. So, if commerce is becoming e-commerce, how is one to chose one web site over another? Will local stores adjust to not being overstocked in popular items while providing little, if any, shelf space to occasional sales items? Is the (first) world going to become more complex but no more rewarding? I know that, for me, shopping has rarely been a desirable recreational activity. As the world adjusts to the implications of COVID-19 and its successors, will it become even less so?

Fortunately, the local veterinarian practice seems to have adapted to social distancing reasonably  well. Make an appointment, pull into the parking lot, text them and their staff comes and takes your dog(s) in and does what's needed. The number to text is on signs at the head of each parking space. If today hadn't been as warm (our first 80℉ of the year) and humid, it would all have worked just fine. Next time we'll know enough to wait outside the Jeep with the dogs.

Stores

By David Huddle

Fifteen I got a job at Leggett's, stock 

boy, fifty cents an hour. Moved up—I come 

from that kind of people—to toys at Christmas,

then Menswear and finally Shoes. 

                                                  Quit to go 

to college, never worked retail again, but 

I still really like stores, savor merchandise 

neatly stacked on tables, sweaters wanting

my gliding palm as I walk by, mannequins 

weirdly sexy behind big glass windows, 

shoes shiny and just waiting for the right feet. 

So why in my seventies do Target, Lowes,

and Home Depot spin me dizzy and lost, 

wanting my mother to find me, wipe my eyes,

hold my hand all the way out to the car?

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