Walking Into a Bookstore
Monday, August 23, 2020
Do you consider yourself a good shopper? I mean, do you look for bargains, value, quality? Do you try to stretch your dollars? Yeah, we do, too! Actually, we tend to think of ourselves as the consummate shoppers. We have shopped for our homes. We comparison shop for cars. We dig in and study cruises and vacation choices. We’re always looking for a good price on the best product. And we do so knowing full well that Realtors, car salesmen, travel agents, merchants and grocers are all doing their very best to get top dollar for their products!!! It is, after all, the way of commerce.
So, we were fascinated to find the article, “Rolling, Rolling”, in the September 2020 issue of Food Network Magazine. This single-page spread detailed Sylvan Goldman’s eureka-moment when he realized he could “help” his customers buy more!
Back in the day, consumers would shop by asking a clerk for whatever product they wanted. The clerk would fetch each item. Not until 1916 was the “self-service” concept introduced. The Piggly-Wiggly grocery store, founded by Clarence Saunders, revolutionized the shopping experience by providing wicker baskets for customers to use while shopping and having a “cashier” to finalize the shopping transaction. And then, 20 years later, Sylvan Goldman noticed that customers in his Oklahoma Humpty-Dumpty grocery store chain (don’t you just love these grocery store names!!!) would finish shopping when their baskets were full. He experimented with two removable baskets on a rolling frame to entice his customers to stay longer and buy more. The shopping cart was born!!!
OK, I hear you saying, “So what? Why write a blog post about shopping carts?”
Well, just think, where would we be without the shopping cart during this pandemic? How could we stock-up on toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, water, jugs of wine and late-night TV snacks without a large, mobile, portable, transfer device?!? This pandemic is tough enough. Thank goodness for Sylvan Goldman who made it possible for us to, at least, transport the necessities of “stay-at-home” comforts.
So, there you are! Shopping is a breeze with Sylvan Goldman’s convenient invention.
Go Buy Something!!!
And remember: social-distance, wear your mask, avoid crowds.
Stay safe, and be well!!!
RovingRaconteurs.com 
Impressed with your Covid shopping and well organized supplies!
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Wow! Very organized, very comprehensive, although I didn’t notice any photos of your wine cellar 🙂
Great photos for ideas. Love you cabinets, too:) When we had our cruise cancelled in March, we had pretty much cleaned out all our supplies, given that we were to be away for 7 weeks. A mad dash ensued to stock up on ……. everything, instead of flying out to the cruise! What a change of scenery! Have decided that we will keep self-stable supplies stocked up much more seriously from now on. A good lesson to learn.
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Thank you, Patricia. Nearly a decade ago, we quickly learned that the 5-month hurricane season here in Florida (June 1st thru October 31) comes with responsibilities: must have non-perishable foods stockpiled; must maintain a full tank of gas to be ready for mandatory evacuations; must have enough bottled water to last a water outage; and lanterns as well as a propane grill comes in handy during a power outage. Florida grocers ALWAYS have huge supplies of paper towels and TP on order for May and June. We were ready to stock-up for the pandemic because, of course, the hurricane season didn’t defer to a pandemic!!! Wonder if the the pandemic will end as predictably as the hurricane season?
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