SHOPPING

 

Each person is endowed with unique and specific skills. One may become interested in creating clothes where as the other may cultivate bananas. This is a suitable environment for exchange and barter. It is not ever possible to avoid interacting with people.

Many People excel in this activity called interaction. For some it is just an entertainment or pastime or a hobby. Others may have multiple objectives while interacting.

For many people, their livelihood is dependent on their ability to interact with others. As with other things, interactions also give results or consequences. But is there an escape?

Pursuit of interacting with yourself devoid of any other is alright. There must be a bench mark as to whether you are interacting with yourself correctly.

As much as you introspect and decide to intervene into your own ignorances, so much so, you will enhance your interactive skills with other people. Here begins the art of exchanging goods and services with others.

Is there a tool to ensure fairness and justice in the exchange of goods and services?

What is the unit of measurement of profit and loss?

Accumulating the favorable results through an interactive exchange is called profit. Slowly we have moved into maximizing profits and minimizing losses. A good bargain attempts to minimize the gap between gain and loss. How courageous are you to expose yourself to the art of bargaining?

Look at the market place, a system has evolved for exchange of goods and services. The method of give and take and bargaining , among the masses is the marketplace. Today you have options for shopping. Open market place and fortified shopping malls.

What is your preference? You have wholesale markets and retail shops. Shops that allow bargains and others that have fixed prices. What are the challenges in open markets?

Parking space, dust and other pollutions. Disturbing noises or even rain sometimes may hamper the quality of your shopping experience. Shopping malls have climate controlled aisles, spaces concentrated with one type of goods, multi level parking space, food courts, convenient electronic displays, multiplex cinema theatres and comfortable lounges.

What type of shopper are you? Is your approach to shopping, by the liberal way or cautious?

Are you a planned shopper who has studied all the components that go into purchasing a product?

Have you seen erratic and impulsive buyers who are just happy to buy things? There are other buyers who consider all the peripheral services like the after sales services, discount sales and all other freebies that come along.

People purchase goods for needs or even for image. There are both young and old among the window shoppers who like to treat their eyes and mind to the mannequins in the shops. Food shoppers in the food courts are a breed by themselves.

Game and cinema shoppers can be categorized separately. Young people are seen browsing the gadget showrooms. But the collective behavior of footfalls in the shopping malls have a distinct feature rather than in open markets.

Which is popular in your city: Open markets or the climate controlled shopping malls?

Friday Market, Garage sales, China bazaar, Eat street, Imitation bazaars are also the places where people arrive and interact and exchange.

Some people are specialists in specific market places as much as there are professionals who sell the goods .Some have become very proficient in corresponding the specific needs to the market places. Knowledge of people profiles, communication skills, interactive genius and bargaining instincts altogether make you an expert in the art of shopping.

It requires immense strength to study the correct mannerisms and etiquettes in dealing with the interactions. Sometimes there are emotional buyers; therefore emotional intelligence becomes an important factor in studying the market place.

The Caliber of people in your city to interact with each other will decide the growth and economy of the city. Are you open to further trading?

Trading and economy exchanges also require intellectual rigor and stamina of the heart. The comfort you have with yourself is almost the same as with other people. Conversely speaking the discomfort you have with whom you trade with, may be equal to the discomfort you have with yourself.

Trade, economy exchange and interaction can become your new buzz words. So how to establish the level of comfort with yourself. What are the impediments that stop you from discussing and negotiating the matter with other people? Are you surely moving away from the conventional market space where you are more exposed to other people?

Are you afraid of the assessments they may make about you with respect to your demeanors, with their discovering your interactive weakness?  Have you carefully kept them hidden for so long?

Has online shopping become the new saviour? Have you heard of Leebay, tabong, amazon, flipkart, snapdeal? These online services expand to even other industries like travel, medical, matrimony and even fitness.

Have you ever picked up the phone and called the toll free number on television screen?

The telemarketing industry has a luxury to be able to explain a product to you in 20 min. Can this give you the comfort of understanding a product sitting in your bedroom? Various telebrands have succeeded in giving you the edge of the seat experience by slashing 50% of the cost in case you make a call at that moment. The comfort has moved from open market to the shopping malls then through the internet as online market place.

The grand mother on the veranda has observed this graduation in shopping in the last five decades. In all she claims that the children like the taste of tomato ketchup but have never seen the shape of a raw tomato. They like dairy products but have never seen milking the cow.

The chefs in the fancy kitchen who use ginger and garlic paste from tetra packs would never have handled the raw vegetables. The store of cotton clothes would have never seen the raw cotton. The eaters of soya chunks would have never seen a soya bean. She wonders that how did the various marketplaces succeed in eliminating the human connect and personalized interaction. Commerce looks attractive and glamorous. But devoid of personal connection and a human touch just may not have glitter for long.

Humanism encourages the interaction with people and exchange of goods and services among them, though profit can be a favorable result, profit alone cannot be the main objective .There is much value in the quality of interaction when they are based on kindness, compassion and generosity.

The heartfelt interactions are good standards for the home .Must not then the market place be regulated for sustainance? Human relations, progress and development must happen. Can trade and economics have trust instead of suspicion and confidence instead of threat? Volunteerism and willingness to part with little and petty mind sets will ensure that exchanges can be in accordance with human values.

As a volunteer you can become accountable to steer the economic insight of your city to benefit all its citizens together we can make a city of surpluses and country of abundance.Market place must have collaboration, communication, co-operation and coordination. Economy and  trade can then flourish and all can thrive.