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>If I find an item I want in a big-box store like that locked up, I walk away and order it on Amazon. I don't have time to wander all over the store looking for

>If I find an item I want in a big-box store like that locked up, I walk away and order it on Amazon. I don't have time to wander all over the store looking for an employee with a key to come get me the item I want. This doesn't compute to me. You've gone to the effort, and taken time out of your day, to physically go to a Home Depot and find the product you're looking for. That's time spent doing all that, maybe at least 20 minutes or so, but you'll throw away all of that effort and time because you "don't have the time" to spend just an extra minute or two finding the employee to unlock it? What you want could be two feet in front of your face, but you'll basically kick rocks and say, "Fuck this, I'm going home"? And then, because you "don't have time", you'll wait an additional 24-48 hours?

mwint 4y ago
I’m sure Home Depot and others have numbers on how much sales drop (or don’t?) when they add these locks. I’d love to see those numbers. And maybe for some people there’s an opposite effect! “Lock == valuable -> buy”
iinnPP 4y ago
If you try, you can see many sets of circumstances where this would make sense to a person. Also, you don't need to have an instant need for a product to buy it. Time waiting is not the same as time wasted. You can use all 8-200 hours (Amazon has a personal record for me of 8 hours in my medium size Canadian city) effectively. You are not waiting in line nor waiting for an employee to be able to help you, just walking out of the store with the item in ordered status before you hit the door anyway.
mindcrime 4y ago
What you want could be two feet in front of your face, but you'll basically kick rocks and say, "Fuck this, I'm going home"? Yes, I absolutely will do just that. And then, because you "don't have time", you'll wait an additional 24-48 hours? I don't have time to waste wandering around a store looking for an employee. It's not usually the case that I specifically need the item right now. In that rare exceptional case I'd stick around and find the employee, but that would definitely be the exception and not the norm for me. For me, if I go into Home Depot or somewhere it's more likely that the store was on my way home from work, I had a vague notion that "I need a new tape measure" or whatever, so I stop and go in. In that case, I have NO problem walking right back out if they make it hard to buy the thing I want. Also, just to elaborate, if there are other things I planned to buy while in the store, I may well go ahead and go get those (assuming they aren't locked up as well) so it's not necessarily the case that the entire store visit is thrown away because one item is locked up. But they definitely lose the sale of that specific item, barring the aforementioned exceptional case where I absolutely, positively, must have it "right now".
- jjulius 4y ago
  >For me, if I go into Home Depot or somewhere it's more likely that the store was on my way home from work, I had a vague notion that "I need a new tape measure" or whatever, so I stop and go in. In that case, I have NO problem walking right back out if they make it hard to buy the thing I want. You stop in on your way from work. You see that tape measure, but it's locked down. There's an employee one aisle over who can help. You bail. The act of going to HD, parking, and going to find that tape measure probably takes about 5-10, maybe 15 mins depending on how far off of your route home the store is. Do you consider the cumulative time spent performing those tasks to have been wasted if you leave empty-handed?
  - mindcrime 4y ago
    The act of going to HD, parking, and going to find that tape measure probably takes about 5-10, maybe 15 mins depending on how far off of your route home the store is. Do you consider the cumulative time spent performing those tasks to have been wasted if you leave empty-handed? You're over-analyzing this. None of that matters in any way here. Humans are not homo-economicus - obsessively rational creatures who roam around minimax'ing every decision. At least I'm not.
robotnikman 4y ago
From a rational perspective, this doesn't make sense. But from an emotional and impulsive perspective, it makes perfect sense. People are not entirely driven by rational thinking especially when it comes to trivial tasks like going to the store to buy something, which people usually expect to go smoothly.
- malshe 4y ago
  A rational person shows consistent behavior to maximize their utility. It's perfectly rational if the consumer attaches very high utility to mental peace.
- mindcrime 4y ago
  From a rational perspective, this doesn't make sense. Sure. But how is that relevant to anything? But from an emotional and impulsive perspective, it makes perfect sense. People are not entirely driven by rational thinking especially when it comes to trivial tasks like going to the store to buy something, which people usually expect to go smoothly. Exactly this. There's more to the "equation" so to speak than just minimax'ing around some naive notion of rationality.

mwint 4y ago

I’m sure Home Depot and others have numbers on how much sales drop (or don’t?) when they add these locks. I’d love to see those numbers. And maybe for some people there’s an opposite effect! “Lock == valuable -> buy”

iinnPP 4y ago

If you try, you can see many sets of circumstances where this would make sense to a person. Also, you don't need to have an instant need for a product to buy it. Time waiting is not the same as time wasted. You can use all 8-200 hours (Amazon has a personal record for me of 8 hours in my medium size Canadian city) effectively. You are not waiting in line nor waiting for an employee to be able to help you, just walking out of the store with the item in ordered status before you hit the door anyway.

mindcrime 4y ago

What you want could be two feet in front of your face, but you'll basically kick rocks and say, "Fuck this, I'm going home"? Yes, I absolutely will do just that. And then, because you "don't have time", you'll wait an additional 24-48 hours? I don't have time to waste wandering around a store looking for an employee. It's not usually the case that I specifically need the item right now. In that rare exceptional case I'd stick around and find the employee, but that would definitely be the exception and not the norm for me. For me, if I go into Home Depot or somewhere it's more likely that the store was on my way home from work, I had a vague notion that "I need a new tape measure" or whatever, so I stop and go in. In that case, I have NO problem walking right back out if they make it hard to buy the thing I want. Also, just to elaborate, if there are other things I planned to buy while in the store, I may well go ahead and go get those (assuming they aren't locked up as well) so it's not necessarily the case that the entire store visit is thrown away because one item is locked up. But they definitely lose the sale of that specific item, barring the aforementioned exceptional case where I absolutely, positively, must have it "right now".

jjulius 4y ago
>For me, if I go into Home Depot or somewhere it's more likely that the store was on my way home from work, I had a vague notion that "I need a new tape measure" or whatever, so I stop and go in. In that case, I have NO problem walking right back out if they make it hard to buy the thing I want. You stop in on your way from work. You see that tape measure, but it's locked down. There's an employee one aisle over who can help. You bail. The act of going to HD, parking, and going to find that tape measure probably takes about 5-10, maybe 15 mins depending on how far off of your route home the store is. Do you consider the cumulative time spent performing those tasks to have been wasted if you leave empty-handed?
- mindcrime 4y ago
  The act of going to HD, parking, and going to find that tape measure probably takes about 5-10, maybe 15 mins depending on how far off of your route home the store is. Do you consider the cumulative time spent performing those tasks to have been wasted if you leave empty-handed? You're over-analyzing this. None of that matters in any way here. Humans are not homo-economicus - obsessively rational creatures who roam around minimax'ing every decision. At least I'm not.

robotnikman 4y ago

From a rational perspective, this doesn't make sense. But from an emotional and impulsive perspective, it makes perfect sense. People are not entirely driven by rational thinking especially when it comes to trivial tasks like going to the store to buy something, which people usually expect to go smoothly.

malshe 4y ago
A rational person shows consistent behavior to maximize their utility. It's perfectly rational if the consumer attaches very high utility to mental peace.
mindcrime 4y ago
From a rational perspective, this doesn't make sense. Sure. But how is that relevant to anything? But from an emotional and impulsive perspective, it makes perfect sense. People are not entirely driven by rational thinking especially when it comes to trivial tasks like going to the store to buy something, which people usually expect to go smoothly. Exactly this. There's more to the "equation" so to speak than just minimax'ing around some naive notion of rationality.