

No checkouts, no chocolate: Online shopping hits impulse buys - Amadou
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/us-retail-consumer-checkouts-analysis-idUSBRE9AQ0GG20131127

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malandrew
Interestingly, I find that online shopping permits me to diversify my impulse
buys to products I normally wouldn't ever have the option of buying.

The chocolates and gum in supermarkets, convenience stores, and pharmacies are
all the same 50 or so products everywhere you go, sold by the same half-dozen
candy companies. Instead of getting these candies, I can instead buy more
interesting candies and other foodstuffs that I've not yet tried or find hard
to get.

Online shopping is going to hurt the fat tip of the power-law distribution and
move things out towards the tail. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if
there was an otaku of impulse candy buyers already out there or forming now,
who focus on blogging and tweeting about more interesting candy than those at
the fat tip of the curve.

~~~
kaybe
I want to subscribe to one of those as soon as I have disposable income -
[http://skoshbox.com/](http://skoshbox.com/) /
[http://www.candyjapan.com/](http://www.candyjapan.com/) (sends you a box of
japanese candy each month!)

~~~
Morgawr
Thank you for making me aware of that candyjapan service, it seems to be the
greatest thing ever. Definitely going to subscribe!

~~~
icebraining
Coincidentally, its creator is also an HN user:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745694)

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onion2k
_" In Britain, the country where e-commerce is most popular, about 13 percent
of people do all or most of their grocery shopping online. Yet this only
accounts for 5 percent of overall spending, suggesting consumers spend more
when they visit a store."_

I don't think you can draw that conclusion from the evidence. Perhaps the
people who shop online are the ones who spend less - there isn't likely to be
a linear relationship between spending and impulse buying, and people who
spend less are possibly more likely to be the ones who go online first (no
kids, relatively affluent, time poor seems a likely demographic). As someone
who doesn't like being in a supermarket I went in, got what I needed, and got
the hell out as fast as I could. I don't impulse buy because I'm focused on
speed. I don't browse. When online shopping came along I was a _very_ early
adopter - I switched my supermarket brand choice so I could use it.

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erichurkman
On the flip side, online retailers have a much stronger opportunity to up-sell
products -- they can up-sell on a per-product basis, whereas physical
retailers are bound by shelf space to up-sell/cross-sell.

Online can match products by consumer, too, and even do small A/B tests on
pricing of individual items. That's powerful. Grocery stores have a much
harder time price testing.

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marquis
"Companies most at risk are Mondelez International, Mars Inc and Nestle, the
top three candy makers, soda makers like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, and magazine
publishers like Time Warner and Hearst Corp."

All companies that arguably are doing nothing for betterment of humanity.
Perhaps this Internet fad is a good thing.

~~~
twoodfin
If you think humanity would be better off without the occasional ice cold
Coca-Cola, I think you don't understand much about humans.

We don't work just to 'better ourselves' as philosophers and artists, we work
to enjoy things in life. Maybe Coca-Cola doesn't do it for you, but everyone
else who enjoys it isn't necessarily brainwashed.

~~~
marquis
When a bottle of coca-cola is cheaper than a bottle of water, yes I think that
that company, out of many, deserves a little less market share.

~~~
twoodfin
But that's not what you said. You claimed Coca-Cola was doing "nothing for the
betterment of humanity". The billions of dollars people spend on their
products suggest they're either providing some benefit or have brainwashed
their customers. I guess I have a little more faith in humanity than you do.

~~~
marquis
I urge you to step into a supermarket or corner store/dairy, in any country
outside of an area of affluence. Are you familiar with the concept of Food
Deserts?

"Because of the Agriculture and Food policies soon people living in food
deserts will have only a couple of food producers to choose from: Coca-Cola,
Nestle, Kraft and Kellogg’s."

[http://saynotofoodwaste.org/2013/06/03/food-
deserts/](http://saynotofoodwaste.org/2013/06/03/food-deserts/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert)

~~~
twoodfin
Coca-cola disappears tomorrow and what happens to that food desert? It gets
better? How?

~~~
marquis
Really? You think it's OK that hundreds of thousands of people strangely only
have access to pre-processed foodstuffs, because shipping and storage
regulations, geographical distances, poverty etc mean they can't put fresh
healthy items alongside their emblazoned Coca-Cola refrigerators? In rural
areas like Mexico where tomatoes are left on the vine because NAFTA made it
cheaper to buy U.S. vegetables and corn (thanks subsidies), and a bottle of
water DOES cost more than a can of coke and it's still owned by Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola, Nestle, Kellogs, Kraft: they all make sugar water and empty calorie
products, providing cheap consumables to the population thanks to agricultural
subsides and tax breaks. There is nothing good, at all, about these companies
and if they all disappeared tomorrow perhaps for a day or two we'd be oh!
where's my coke! And then buy some caramel coloured pop from somewhere else.
Do you miss Asbestos and CFCs? Weren't they convenient also?

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kosma
So basically, online shopping hits big food corporations because they can't
exploit people's basic instinct to trick them into buying something they don't
really _need_?

That's actually a _good_ thing.

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myhf
In public, an impulse shopper might buy $3-$10 worth of chocolate and
magazines, but in private they might buy $30-$100 worth of Kickstarter kipple.

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snoonan
I would think the upsell happens in email before, during the shopping
experience, or completely after the online checkout is done, not during the
checkout process. Upsell during checkout is kind of a grocery store concept.
At least those is common in my industry.

As it's hinted to at the end of the article, better consumer habit tracking
and targeted discounted low friction shopping cart adds with would probably
make up for a lot of what is lost trying to port real world shopping behaviors
into online stores (an utterly different experience)

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username42
I think it is just a question of habit. When I started online shopping, I have
reduced impulse buys (candies, ...). Now, I add them to the list.

