Confessions of a Digital Shopaholic

When I was growing up in Pune in the late 80s and 90s, the world was a very different place. Daily staples were available in what we call local mom and pop stores. My mother would often want me to cycle my way to the nearest grocery shop to buy basics like bread, sugar, salt etc. Vegetables and Fruits were restricted to weekly trips to the vegetable markets in select locations. Pune Camp and Mandai were favourite destinations for those who know Pune and those trips were outings in their own right. Clothes and other luxuries were truly a once a while event. It required special occasions like birthdays or festivals like Diwali to get them from MG Road or Laxmi Road. Imported products were surely a distinct luxury and even the candies and chocolates given as complimentary in Air India and other airlines were a gifting and memento item.

On "World Environment Day" as part of my reflections on how this world has changed, I was wondering how this has transformed for us and the impact of that change on the environment. It is a problem of plenty as I realized. Daily essentials are today available across multiple formats.

The following are the different platforms on which these essentials are available and most of them today or enhanced or created through Digital channels:

1.    Milk and Daily Need Delivery Platforms: To start with we have platforms like Big Basket Daily, Milk Basket, Daily Ninja, which not just deliver milk but also allow groceries and other essentials to be delivered (on ordering on their app a night before).

2.    Kiosks: We have a kiosk in our apartment serviced by Big Basket called "Big Basket Instant" which has also daily essentials including basic vegetables too.

3.    Instant Groceries: We then have the latest fad like Swiggie Instant, Blinkit etc which are digital platforms promising to deliver groceries in 10-15 mins flat.

4.    Groceries on E-Commerce Platforms: You then have fulfillment platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket which allow groceries under different brand names like Amazon Fresh etc.

5.    Large E-Commerce Platforms: If I come to other consumables be it essentials or luxuries, that too has mass platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Ajio etc which deliver products between 1 to 5 days.

6.    Traditional Mom and Pop Shops: You then get back to traditional mom and pop retail outlets.

I don’t even need to get to the multiple options we have in the Pharmacy space or Food Delivery space but I am sure some element of this assessment applies there as well.

While convenience is at the heart of a lot of these platforms, several other considerations beg to be considered especially on World Environment Day and hence, lets categories the considerations into logical buckets:

1. Urgency of need: When we were small, it was perfectly fine to wait for a day for essentials and request neighbors to share. Groceries could wait for the weekend and luxuries could easily wait for annual events. So what has changed? Surely our expectations and wants are that we don’t need weekly or annual wait times. However business models are telling is that we need to wait no more than 10-15 mins?
2. Impact to environment through packaging material: It is insane to see how some of the products sent through some of these channels contain 10-20% of volume for the product but the rest is filled with packing material. Yes, we need to ensure safe delivery but how much packaging? 3X or 4X of the products? The plastic, paper, gels etc that go in are costing the environment, are they not?
3. Cost of delivery in terms of emissions: When we buy items in bulk, emissions caused by delivery vehicles are distributed across multiple products, but when we order single products on Instant platforms, we get delivery personnel to contribute to emissions for that one product alone. Yes, some of these platforms use electric vehicles but most electricity generation too is fossil fuel based as of now.
4. Impact to small and medium business: Yes, large businesses provide mass employment, are organized and hence are able to take care of employed individuals in better ways, but surely we need our mom and pop stores and physical retail too. No matter how far Digital develops, the personal touch, the economic opportunity, the entrepreneurship opportunity has to be available to too. Yes, this cannot inflate prices hugely but there needs to be a market for them too

I do appreciate that there are other considerations too but to keep this manageable, I am attempting to analyse the Digital Platforms against the platform we buy from them:

Given the above considerations, I think its worth considering these and other aspects carefully before we overdo our usage of each of these platforms. Convenience is great but lets reflect at what cost some of these options come.

I would love to hear what you think and what is your assessment of the same.