Provision Shops

AMK Hub opened recently, and it houses one really mega NTUC Hypermart. And since then I've been telling my mum, please shop there, it offers so much more than the dingy little Shop N' Save (SNS) around the corner does. But she refuses, then smiles, then continues on her routine pilgrimages, a loyal SNS devotee to the end.

Back then I just couldn't understand her. I had been to both places, and the contrast is truly startling, so much so that I found it hard pressed to see just how SNS could be the more attractive option.

Look at NTUC. The variety of goods there is astounding. You can get anything you want, from groceries to clothes to Xboxes. The thrill alone of seeing so many things at your fingertips is enough to entice even the most jaded of shoppers.

Compare that with SNS. It’s cosy, I grant you that, but you can’t really get more than the basic groceries you need. Sure, every once in a while you get special sales of clothes or other household items, but that’s about it really.

Before you conclude that I’m a dolt for not recognizing the million other factors involved, allow me to explain. I noticed too that occasionally my mum would pop by NTUC, or other shops for that matter, to get whatever else she could not find from SNS.

That led me to think, which provision shop ever provides you with all you need? Beyond the tangible physical goods on sale, there are the intangible considerations like convenience, or familiarity with the place, or the shopping experience, things like that. No one shop has it all, and that’s why shoppers frequent different places to satisfy all their needs.

Then it hit me – people are like that too. We’re all provision shops in our own right.

I mean, we all have qualities for sale. It just varies from person to person, the exact composition of our inventory on display. Our personalities and circumstances make up the rest of the equation, the intangible aspects like how approachable we are, how trustworthy, how… convenient.

Just like shops, it’s really quite impossible to imagine finding all that you need in a single person. Emotionally, many times, it seems that way, but the reality is that you do need to find other people too, for different things, to satisfy different needs. You can frequent a certain shop and call yourself a die-hard loyal customer, that’s fine, but you’ll amaze me if you did not need to shop at anywhere else for other things.

I’m sure you have noticed as well, that the strongest romantic relationships are those buoyed with multiple kinships with other people. We might find that our significant other fulfills almost all of our needs in life, but hey, the key word is ‘almost’.

It makes you wonder, does it not, what type of shop you want to be. Which slice of the demographic you want to appeal to, how much effort you will expend in keeping yourself well-stocked, how much different or enticing do you want your customer reward system to be…

And those are just the basic questions. What about the business motivations? Are you opening a shop only for the money? Is it profits-driven (think McDonalds / Walmart) or is it interest-driven, where you want to reach out to customers with the same passions (think hobby shops, or specialty food shops). Are you operating a shop merely because it is a means of survival, or because the business itself is your life?

And just as people are shops in their own way, so too are we shoppers, customers. The teenaged Hanting would settle for nothing less than Borders even if he already had a specific book in mind (the hip factor then was undeniable), but now, now if the NUS Coop had it, it would do just fine. Our priorities change in life, and it may take some time before we figure out exactly what we want when we go shopping, but we will eventually.

Just like my mum did, I guess. For all the bells and whistles NTUC has, SNS is good enough. For the time being.