A Stitch in Haste

Here are two facts:

1. I am shopping around for a WRT54GS.
2. My parents are shopping around for a cruise.

Now in all likelihood neither of these two statements is particularly informative to you. But they each represent two diametrically opposed ends of the "shopping experience."

Let's begin with Statement #1. It might help to elaborate that I am looking for a Linksys WRT54GS Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster. I know that's the model of wireless router I want, and the only consideration left for me now is price. I want it and I want it as cheaply as possible.

So perhaps I will take advantage of the new "shopping phone" program lamented by this Luddite New York Times Magazine writer:

Should the "shopping phone" fulfill its promise, deep discounts will become standard and universal, and stores will have to seek an edge in less familiar ways — perhaps by dressing their workers in clingy costumes the way Las Vegas casinos do. That would be one route: pile on the thrills. The other, more likely, more cost-effective route would be to stamp out the thrills entirely and cultivate a dreary bare-bones efficiency that will make today's Wal-Marts seem like Roman palaces and today's Wal-Mart employees look like emperors.

The piece is peppered with similar infantile anti-Wal-Mart cheap shots, but that's not the point. The point is the dire predictions the writer foresees; that "shopping" is a consumption good in its own right, and should not be allowed to die at the hands of "shopping phones" (or Wal-Mart):

Despite the cost-controlled monolithic gloom of the Wal-Marts and Costcos of the land, human beings, deep down, are still creatures of the bazaar, with a restless desire to haggle and finagle that cuts across cultures and the centuries. Outflanking the salesmen and beating out other customers is a primal survivalistic drive that links modern Topekans with the ancient Turks. It's a contest we lose as often as we win, but when we do win, it makes us feel alive and gives us something to boast about to friends. ... Being ripped off, in fact, can prove invigorating, and it may be a crucial engine of evolution, or at least of personal development.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

Apparently we should allow ourselves to be "ripped off" every so often for the sake of our "personal development," just like we should let ourselves be punched in the face every so often, just to keep in mind what pain feels like.

Perhaps this is the true Original Sin of Wal-Mart — it deprives us of the opportunity to be overcharged for our goods. It stunts our personal development by not letting us be ripped off in the bazaar.

As for "feeling alive," I would much rather "feel alive" at home playing with Diamond, which I can do more of if I don't waste time feeding my inner "haggler and finagler" in a store while trying to stimulate the bazaar of my ancestral R-Complex.

---

Even if this mythical "lost paradise" of haggling and finagling in communal bazaars did have something to offer for its own sake, rather than as a means to a consumptive end, it still wouldn't matter, for the shopping experience that the Times writer yearns for will still obtain in other situations.

Enter Statement #2. I was not being willfully obtuse. My parents know that they want to go on a cruise. And that's about all they know right now. They're torn between Alaska and Hawaii, and have countless other variables to consider — which cruise line, what time of year, how big a cabin to reserve, which airlines to use, etc.

Now unlike "WRT54GS" you can't plug "cruise" into a cell phone and get the unconditionally best price as an answer. Enter the travel agent and her specialized knowledge and experience — her "bazaar" if you prefer.

Travel agents are just one small example. Many people wrongly predicted a quick and painful death to the travel agent industry when the Internet first arose. And certainly web-based alternatives have not benefited the industry. But the travel agent industry is far from dead, and will likely never completely die. Because the Internet and cell phones cannot convey all travel information. Price, sure. Availability, sure. But "Alaska or Hawaii?" That's another matter.

Of course there will always be travel agents — not to mention window shopping and interior designers and fashion consultants and customer satisfaction surveys and movie reviewers and safety rankings and Book-of-the-Month Clubs and countless other ways to keep the "bazaar" alive and thriving.

But can't we, at least sometimes, just get our damn WRT54GS fast and cheap? Must we always succumb to our inner haggler? Is that much of our "Shopping Paradise Lost" at stake? And do New York Times writers really need to keep inventing new ways to unfairly bash Wal-Mart?