Unarrange

Super markets - I always wondered what was “super” about them. Is it because of the power given to the shopper to choose? Or is it because of the power given to the shop owner to make the shopper spend more than what is in his/her shopping list? The main idea is that the shopper gets to choose what he/she wants to buy.

I have observed some strange things in super markets which I feel are happening because of the choices given to the shopper. In an ideal super market, the products are neatly organized by the categories they belong to. But super markets exist in a world which is not ideal and you could get to see products at all the wrong places. A brand like Pampers does not go well with a brand like Kohinoor even if you are thinking of basmati rice.

I decided to investigate the reason for this - is it because of the “employees” in the super market or is it because of the “shoppers” themselves? I found that it is a mix of both.

What happens when you are riding a two-wheeler back home and it starts to rain? You try to take cover under a tree. But with trees becoming a rare sight these days the next possible shelter will be under the Metro construction. But you might never know what will fall on your head once you remove your helmet. The safest alternative will be the road-side shops but mostly all places will be taken. The only way would be to park your vehicle and enter a super market. You can always roam around till the rain stops and you are in no obligation to buy anything. Such a shopper is called a “no shopper”. You just roam around and look at the products with absolutely no intention of buying anything. But if an employee catches you and asks in pre-Shakespearean English “Kaan I help you saar” or “yes madhaam”, you can try to ask for a product which does not exist – like a 1.75 litre Coca Cola bottle with a blue cap. The employee will try to search for it and will explain to you with a sorry face that they have “run out of stock”. You can leave the scene with a sad emoticon on top of your face. But if you are not smart enough and ask for a lemon drink in a bottle shaped like Mallika Sherawat, you could end up with a bottle in your hand. Now how to get rid of the bottle? Just go to a section of the super market where you can get rid of all employees and then get rid of the bottle even if it is the crockery section. Whom to blame for the orphaned bottle? I think it is the employee for forcing the shopper to do something which goes against the definition of a super market.

In some cases, you could go to a super market with a clear intention of buying something. Buying a bottle of lime pickle could be your “clear intention” but still it could confuse you in two ways. You confidently march to the pickle area and pick the first bottle of lime pickle you see. Then as you move on to the billing area you subconscious mind tells you that there was another brand available. You go back and see the other brand. You are not able to decide which brand to buy and to make things worse both brand names end with “chi”. This category of shoppers is called “brand confused shoppers”. You pick up one bottle of each brand and as you walk towards the billing area, you decide to buy one brand. But what happens to the other bottle. Just place it in a rack next to you even if the bottle is next to Lindt and Cadbury's.

Sometimes you still go with a clear intention of buying a bottle of Ruchi lime pickle. This leads us to the second category of clear-intention shoppers called as “price confused shoppers”. But then you realize that there are different shapes and sizes of bottles and you do not know which one will turn out cheaper. So you pick up 2 or 3 bottles of different sizes and do some quick or slow math and select one. What happens to the other bottles? You guessed it right. They will be sitting next to Oral-B.

Some people cannot decide whether they want something or not. So they pick up a nice T-shirt in the first floor and after reaching the ground floor, the change in atmospheric pressure will trigger a lot of questions in the brain. Is this T-shirt too tight? Is the color all right? Do I have to buy a jean for this? Is it too expensive? Do I need this T-shirt at all? These shoppers are “just confused shoppers”. After a long list of questions, if they decide not to buy it, they carefully drape the T-shirt on top of a VIP suitcase and make an exit.

By default, the world is full of chaos. The super market tries to bring some order to the products world by categorizing them and arranging them. But ultimately, they belong to the same world of chaos and it has to return to the same state. So what should be done to people who unarranged (for need of a better word) things in a super market? In my opinion, we should honour them for bringing some sense of normalcy to the super markets.