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What Are The Greatest Changes In Shopping In Your Lifetime
What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.
As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.
That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.
Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.
Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.
Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.
Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.
That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.
Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.
Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.
My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.
Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.
And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.
All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:
• Farm eggs
• Fresh vegetables
• Cow’s milk
• Freshly baked bread
• Coal for our open fires
Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.
Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.
Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.
Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.
My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.
The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.
Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.
Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.
People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.
In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.
Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.
• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.
• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.
• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.
On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.
Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.
We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.
Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.
My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.
Exploit Internet’s Amazing Marketing Powers: 4 Most Important Tips
We are living in the age of Internet Marketing, also known as Content Marketing. Here, online visibility is a must, to stay on top and relevant, and make more money.
If you don’t have a good web presence, and aren’t busy promoting and expanding your business, via effective Internet Marketing, you won’t survive for long.What’s Internet Marketing?It’s the new age marketing of a business or brand and its products and services over the Internet, through different tools, employing content, e-mails, search and paid media strategies, to help drive traffic, leads and sales.
Internet Marketing techniques are mostly organic by nature, but these (the techniques) could be paid as well.
Organic internet marketing may not lead to great results instantly, but it would help businesses grow and expand eventually, if done the right way.Content Marketing is the FutureAs per a study, 91% of businesses, across the globe, believe that Internet Marketing is an indispensable and exciting marketing tactic.
Content Marketing involves offering valuable, readable and steady content. It’s the marketing of the present and future.
It stimulates, educates, and guides prospects, and builds trust, authority and connections. When it happens, and when you offer help and value to your customers and prospects, they reward you by becoming your customers and utilizing your products & services.Content Marketing vs. Traditional MarketingContent Marketing is Inbound Marketing and not Outbound Marketing, also called Traditional Marketing. By and large, the latter is interruptive, obstructive, and invasive, besides being costly.
A research shows that, presently, 615+ million devices in the world have adblockers.
What does it mean?
It means traditional marketing may not be very effective.
As per another study, Content Marketing or Internet Marketing is 62% less costly, vis-à-vis the traditional marketing though it pulls over 3 times more business and profits.Visuals & Videos RuleVisuals–in the form of exciting videos and infographics–are comparatively more powerful in attracting new customers and others. Brain processes visuals 60,0000 times faster than texts.
As per another report, people are consuming over 500 million hours of video content daily across the globe.
In an age where majority of us suffer from attention-span problem, it certainly pays to make videos and visuals–that informs, empowers and entertains–a crucial element of our content creating & promotion strategies.
Online videos swiftly increase awareness, stays top of mind with new customers, and also leads to conversions from high-intent viewers.
These also give any brand the power to reach, engage, and convert its most prized audiences in the right moments – whether they’re exposed to a completely new brand for the first time, or are just a few minutes away from striking a deal, and making a purchase.
When brands are present and useful in those moments, the chances of results following are high.4 Exciting Tips for Successful Content MarketingTo harness the amazing powers of Internet Marketing, in the most fruitful way, make Search Engine Optimization (SEO), grammar & spelling, storytelling, and videos an important part of your overall content marketing strategy.1. SEO: Optimize your content for better visibility and improved performance on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). If your content fails to find a place on the first page, it won’t lead to the results you could be keen in.2. Grammar & Spelling: Ensure that your blogs and articles are grammatically correct, and have the right spellings. A piece of content–with glaring grammatical errors and misspellings–won’t’ impress your readers and prospects even as your brand’s value will diminish.3. Stories: Master the art of storytelling for higher traction. Most of us love stories. If there’s a beautiful and inspiring story woven cleverly in your piece, it will pull the ‘emotional trigger’, and lead to better ‘connections’ with your readers and prospects.4. Videos: As per a report, in India, online video is behind over 70% of the nation’s total data usage. As the nation’s online population continues to increase, so will the figure of the video-famished consumers, browsing the web. So, use videos and attractive designs to create persuasive visual content!Summing-up, make Internet Marketing a vital cog in your business establishment and expansion wheel. Follow the marketing strategy tips shared to make more money, and get the best possible business results.