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.

US Markets in green on Friday; Dow 30 up over 345 points, Nasdaq Composite, S&P 500 up nearly 1%

US Markets were trading in the green on Friday with Dow 30 trading at 30,678.80, up by 1.14%. While S&P 500 was trading at 3,701.66, up by 0.98% and Nasdaq Composite 10,690.60 was also up by 0.71 per cent

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US Markets in green on Friday; Dow 30 up over 345 points, Nasdaq Composite, S&P 500 up nearly 1%
Earlier today, Indian stock markets ended the week on a winning note. It was the sixth straight gains for equity markets. Source: Reuters
US Markets were trading in the green on Friday with Dow 30 trading at 30,678.80, up by 345.25 points or1.14 per cent. While S&P 500 was trading at 3,701.66, up by 35.88 points or 0.98 per cent and Nasdaq Composite 10,690.60 was also up 75.75 points or 0.71 per cent. A Reuters report said that today’s strength was on the back of a report which said the Federal Reserve will likely debate on signaling plans for a smaller interest rate hike in December, reversing declines set off by social media firms after Snap Inc’s ad warning.

Source: Comex

Nasdaq Top Gainers and Losers

Source: Nasdaq

Earlier today, Indian stock markets ended the week on a winning note. It was the sixth straight gains for equity markets. The BSE Sensex ended at 59,307.15, up by 104.25 points or 0.18 per cent from the Thursday closing level. Meanwhile, the Nifty50 index closed at 17,590.00, higher by 26.05 points or 0.15 per cent. In the 30-share Sensex, 13 stocks gained while the remaining 17 ended on the losing side. In the 50-stock Nifty50, 21 stocks advanced while 29 declined.

7 Signs You’re Not Ready For Online Business Success

Dot.Com or Internet businesses started going main-stream in the early 1990′s and between 1995 and 2000 internet stocks were selling at multiples of their book values. Most of the Dot.Com companies had nothing tangible to justify their Mount Everest-high prices. It didn’t take long before the market started correcting itself and by October 4, 2002 the NASDAQ index had crashed by 76.81%, to 1,139.90, from a peak of 5,084.62 recorded on March 10, 2000..Since the burst, the Dot.Com business had separated the men from the boys with valuable lesson learnt. Many of the boys went home to their parents to lick their wounds while the men started searching for the keys to online business success. As a matter of fact, no one key to online business success was found as internet business was a brand new territory. So it became a matter of trial and error to find out what worked.In 2012 Rich Schefren released his much-acclaimed Internet Business Manifesto in which he advised Dot.Com entrepreneurs to approach every aspect of online business, from list building to product development and sales, strategically rather than tactically. He particularly noted that technology is an enabler and the whole focus should be on developing structures and building relationships rather than looking for tactical advantages like trying to outsmart the algorithms.Since the Dot.Com crash, many online entrepreneurs have figured out what works and what doesn’t and the internet is producing millionaires in record numbers in assorted niches and sub-niches. One of such millionaires is Russell Brunson, the author of three best-selling books: Dot.Com Secrets, Expert Secrets, and Traffic Secrets. These books are definitive guides on what works online. If only to note in passing, as at the 2020, Russell Brunson’s net-worth was estimated at $41m; a figure he built over 15 years.Scott Cunningham of Social Lite not long ago pointed out that online entrepreneurs go through three phases: the crawl phase, when you’re making less than $100,000 per annum, the walk phase when you’re making between $100,000 to $1m, and the run phase when you’re making over $1m. It is at the crawl phase you need the most learning.For those of us in the crawl phase, it’s important to note that, just like anything in life, online business has its own guiding principles. Those who succeed in a big way online follow these principles. The opposite is also true for those who fail. As Russell Brunson and other internet business experts would readily advice, do what works. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.Here are seven signs you’re not ready for online business success. Not in any particular order, they include:1. You’re not curious, indeed more often than not you’re skeptical that people like you are building successful online businesses and making money.2. You’re not paranoid, indeed you believe online business is a passing fad and will soon go away. Andy Grove, Intel’s co-founder, once said, “Only the Paranoid Survive”. The internet is not likely to go away soon.3. You believe Social Media is a distraction; if you use SM at all, you use it for the “social” aspect. Social media like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are business tools if you know how to use them.4. You lack production mindset, you rather consume, and if you produce at all, you’re inconsistent. To succeed online, especially if you’re selling digital products, you must be a prolific producer.5. You wear the toga of expert, always asking, “What can anybody teach me?” As Steve Jobs said in his Stanford’s 2005 Commencement address, “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”6. You focus on the negatives: fraud, complexity, and the technicalities etc., thus convincing yourself “it’s not for me”. The internet has its dark side. It also has its bright side. Embrace the bright side.7. You live a “satisfied life” believing you’re already successful so “why bother?” This is the attitude of high corporate earners. Why not invest and learn now you’re earning high; sooner or later, you’ll retire.If you exhibit three or more of the signs I have enumerated above: you lack curiosity, you’re not paranoid about the internet, you hate social media or only use it for play, you rather consume than produce, you consider yourself an expert who knows it all, you only see the dark side of the internet, and you’re too satisfied to bother, the simple interpretation is that you lack online business success mindset.The signs simply say you’re not ready for online business success. I define online success as someone who makes a minimum of $10,000 monthly online and scaling and investing massively to move from the crawl to the walk stage. My simple advice to you is this: get off your couch, put on your running shoes and start looking for online business influencers to learn how you too can succeed online.