Gyroscopic Investing

Recently, I've been wondering if we, as consumers, have destroyed our own access to local goods through Internet shopping.  I needed to buy a gate to put at the top of our stairs to protect my infant son, who is just beginning to crawl, from tumbling headfirst down the stairs.  The problem is that I needed a gate wide enough to fit a 60" opening.  I went to Home Depot and Lowes and both of them only had one or two options for child-proof gates, and none of them were wider than about 48".

I literally had no local option to buy a gate to fit an opening 60" wide.  I went on Amazon and found about 25 different options that could fit almost any sized opening.  I could even buy extensions to make existing gates wider to fit larger areas.

This got me thinking, has there always been such a lack of selection at local stores?  What did parents do 10 years ago if they needed a child-proof gate to cover a 60" opening?  I live in a very large metropolitan area about an hour from NYC, so it's not a local availability issue.  There are probably 10 different Home Depot or Lowes stores within driving distance of my house, and not one of them stocks a gate wider than 48".

This is one of those externalities - perhaps by purchasing so many goods online to save money and sales tax, we have destroyed our own access to quality and selection of goods from local brick and mortar stores.  Perhaps our "race to the bottom" as educated consumers with smartphones that can look up any price in seconds, has a hidden cost - we are putting the stores that used to stock a wide selection of goods out of business, and only allowing the big box retailers, who keep a limited supply of items, to survive.

In the context that Amazon seems to be raising their prices lately, and might begin charging sales tax soon, it seems like we might be starting to pay for our sins as educated consumers very soon.

Imagine a world where you can only shop online, but everything costs the same price as local, and you have to pay sales tax.  You get the worst of both worlds - high prices and a hassle if you need to return something, or try something out in the store first.

If that happens, I imagine the reduced or eliminated price advantage of Amazon et al. will cause local businesses to do better.

IMO this has always been a problem and is nothing new. I remember having to do a lot of special orders, or mail order, in the 1980s. Remember that? You had to wait 6-8 weeks, had practically no paper trail or ETA, and always had to pay tax.

Pointedstick wrote: If that happens, I imagine the reduced or eliminated price advantage of Amazon et al. will cause local businesses to do better.

+1

Even in the early days of Amazon.com, I remember being amazed at how much better their selection was than at local brick-and-mortar stores. The local stores simply aren't big enough--nor will they ever be--to have in-store selection that's more than a small fraction of what's available online in those giant warehouses.

KevinW wrote: IMO this has always been a problem and is nothing new. I remember having to do a lot of special orders, or mail order, in the 1980s. Remember that? You had to wait 6-8 weeks, had practically no paper trail or ETA, and always had to pay tax.

I do remember. Ordering on the phone (shudder).

What you're seeing with big box stores and Amazon is the ongoing result of standardization.  One of the reasons Home Depot and Lowes have done so well is that they carry so many different standardized skus in stock that few small local businesses can compete on that.  The smaller ones that can compete usually do so by inspiring fierce customer loyalty, or by moving to some form of specialization in things a few people need but are practically obsolete (like hand wringers or washboards) and moving some of their sales online, going after particular segments (like artists) or providing custom services--like building your baby gate for you from scratch and delivering it.  Of course, that costs much more.

FWIW, You might be able to get two gates that are less than 30" width and install them, with  something in the center to keep them firmly closed.  If you do that you might want to look into the kind of hinges on one or both sides that allow one or both doors to swing wider than a 90-degree angle.  Two under 30" sliding doors would also work well, but need a center closure that is secure.

If you get one 60" gate, it will take up lots of floor space simply because the door arc will take up much of the floor space.  If it is the kind of door that has no hinge and has to be manually put into place each time, I predict that at 60" it will fall into random use or even total disuse, even if it is made of lightweight materials:  Too much of a hassle, and too heavy and bulky for most mothers to deal with.  A single sliding door for the 60" space would work, but again, there's the floor space issue.  

Eons ago, people did not have anything as smart as gates inside their homes.  But a wise person realized this was a good idea, probably in the 1970s when large numbers of women were working outside the home.  Fathers, uncles, grandfathers, and other male relatives (and not a few female relatives) had "shop" skills, and if they needed a gate of any size they bought the materials, cut them to size, and built their own.  This was all BHD (Before Home Depot). 

So Amazon and Home Depot have changed that behavior, too.

KevinW wrote: IMO this has always been a problem and is nothing new. I remember having to do a lot of special orders, or mail order, in the 1980s. Remember that? You had to wait 6-8 weeks, had practically no paper trail or ETA, and always had to pay tax.

Yeah, I suppose you're right.  The Sears catalog used to fulfill a lot of those needs, but it's days were numbered once the Internet came about.

And on the other hand, the benefits of having the internet and people selling all kinds of special sizes, colors, etc means one can usually find what one wants even something simple e.g. my bedroom is a little tight for space and I wanted narrow brown plastic or wood garbage cans for between the nightstands and the bed.  Because of the selection available to me I was able to find two options (at least one via Amazon which is often a good place to start for selection, though not for price as others have noted).