Life in America (Part 2)

Kishore C.S.  (June 2000)

Continuing on my series of articles of experience in US, this article will highlight how an Indian may experience the shopping convenience. The observations made are from own personal experience.

Convenience of Shopping

Being used street shops and so many shopping bazaars of India, shopping in US provides a completely different experience. The following are the major observations I have 

-          Shops are HUGE: The first thing people observe is the size of the shops. The smallest shop I have seen is bigger than the biggest supermarket I have seen in India. Stores are very huge and house every available brand in each shopping item. The sheer size of each shop will surprise first time visitors. Malls are shopping areas which house all types of shops. In the area (Milpitas, CA) we are staying Great Mall has around 100 shops in one single complex.

-          Shops are branded: You will not find individual owner shops. All shops are chain of stores. You will find same shop in each city you visit.

-          Shops contain all items: Each shop will cater to particular category and will most probably include all items. E.g. you go to Office Depot which supplies everything that is needed for an office. You go to Fry’s an electronic shop then you will get everything electronic. Typical department store will contain all items one needs (ranging from food items to every other item one needs for a house).

-          Shop till you are tired of walking: You can spend hours in a shop. We have spent a few hours just looking at all the items available in couple of shops. It was a good time pass for us.

-          Get Discounts: All shops offer discounts. On many occasions you get discounts and using cards also given by shops you can get discounts.

-          Round the clock shops: Many shops are open 24 hours and it becomes a very convenient to shop at the time you want.

-          Food items: Ready made food items is one major advantage I food. Milk, buttermilk, Ready made Rotis, frozen idly and what not. Everything is available in packages and this makes cooking also very convenient.

-          There are no street side shops: The pan shops that are ubiquitous in India don’t exist. Once we had to travel almost a mile to get a match box. So one needs to plan well in advance for shopping. You can’t have a scenario where you realize just before cooking you realize a crucial ingredient is missing.  

So now every couple of days we just walk in to the nearest department store. Drag the shopping cart through the aisles and just dump all the items we feel we need into the shopping cart. We spend an average of half an hour going through the shop before we head to the billing counter. We are used to the convenience of US shopping by now.