So Many Products
Why is it so hard to find the right one?
Many years ago, I found a bra I liked at Victoria’s Secret. VS wasn’t my kind of store, but it was in every mall, they had bras, and I needed one. I was glad when the shopping, not something I enjoy, yielded a good result.
If you’re a man, you likely have no idea how absolutely impossible it is to find a comfortable bra that fits right. Okay, even an uncomfortable one that fits right. I mean, totally impossible. So if you find one that’s a somewhat close approximation, you go for it. That’s what I did.
Eventually, I needed a new bra, so I went back to VS to buy the same one. They no longer carried it. In a feeble attempt at explanation, the saleswoman told me they were a “fashion-forward” store. In other words, they keep introducing new products so you’ll buy more stuff.
A repeating story
To this day, I haven’t found a bra I really like. But I fared far better with leggings. For a limited time, that is.
On a trip to REI a few years ago, I found the most perfect leggings ever. They fit well. They were buttery soft and didn’t dig into my waist. And best of all, they had pockets! What more could a woman want?
I wore those leggings a lot, so eventually I thought I’d better get another pair. But — you guessed it — for some mysterious reason, the best leggings in the world had been discontinued.
This despite the many, many pleas in REI’s online reviews to bring them back. I’m not alone in my love for these leggings. What happened?
We may never know. I’d found the perfect leggings, only to have them snatched away.
No sooner had I struck out with the leggings than I had the same experience with an even more necessary staple of life: coffee.
I tried a number of coffees before settling on a specific Italian roast that I love. I make a blend of half-caff using the regular and decaf Italian roast from Allegro, which was apparently one of the first organic-certified coffee roasting companies in the U.S. Their decaf is water-processed, which is supposed to preserve the coffee’s flavor while avoiding potentially toxic chemicals.
I tried other flavors, including Allegro’s French roast. But only the Italian roast did it for me.
It turns out that Allegro, unbeknownst to me, had been acquired by Whole Foods back in 1997, long before I discovered the brand. I didn’t know much about Allegro when I first spotted it at the store. I just knew it was organic, and the price was right. It was recently rebranded Whole Foods, but it was still the same delicious coffee I knew.
Then, with no warning, the decaf Italian roast disappeared from the shelves at the stores.
As much as I dislike Amazon, I figured that looking for the coffee online was worth a try. It was still there! But the price of a 12-ounce bag had gone up to $37.99. What??
Yet again, a product I loved had become unavailable — unless you were okay with highway robbery.
The land of products
There may be no place in the world with as many products as the U.S. We’re swimming in products.
When I think about our abundance of products, it always brings to mind a funny scene I saw in a movie long ago — I think it was the 1989 Italian movie The Icicle Thief, a parody of the more famous Bicycle Thieves. In the movie, a woman from some black-and-white past is transported to the colorful present. There, she goes into a modern store bursting with stuff, where she exclaims in delight, “So many products!”
That scene cracked me up. The character’s glee wasn’t about any specific product. She didn’t particularly care what they were. She was happy just to see so many products.
Was the store in the U.S.? I can’t recall, and the movie isn’t available to view online. But it might as well have been. Nowhere are there more products than here.
So, why is it so hard to find the right one?
Part of the answer lies in that very abundance. Numerous studies have shown that having too many options not only makes it harder for us to choose but also makes us less likely to be satisfied with our choice when we do make it. We’re always wondering if we chose the right thing, always thinking there might be something better out there. How do we know if the one toothpaste we selected out of the million available brands, flavors, and types is the right one? Every choice is a rejection of the many other potential products out there. (This is as much an issue with bigger life choices, like selecting a spouse — but I’m sticking to products for today.)
What’s responsible for the abundance of products? The system that this Flower Child is not a big fan of, our particular incarnation of unfettered capitalism. Capitalism gives — and capitalism takes. The minute it’s not in a company’s interest to keep selling a specific product, it will stop selling it. We consumers may never know why. The company may simply, in the guise of being “fashion-forward,” want to move to something shiny and new in the hopes of luring you to purchase more. Whatever their reason, if we’ve come to rely on a particular product and it vanishes, we have no control over that. We have to go back to the long, arduous process of finding a new favorite.
When you finally find the right one
With so much product overload, it’s rare that you find one in the Goldilocks zone. My leggings and coffee stood out because they were so rare — perfect products I’d been lucky to happen upon out of the many millions out there. It was like finding my one true love.
I don’t believe in a soulmate, one person you’re destined to be with. I’m sure that out of the 8 billion people in the world, there are a number that each of us could be happy with.
But I haven’t found any leggings that measure up to those REI favorites. No other coffee quite hits the spot for me like that Allegro flavor.
It’s hard losing your true love. And in the case of my leggings and coffee — well, it’s a first-world problem for sure. Many people around the world don’t have the choices I do when it comes to leggings, coffee, or a multitude of other products.
But that’s the point. I find it ironic that in a place with so, so many products, it’s so, so hard to find the right one. And when you do, it’s so, so likely it will suddenly disappear one day — a victim of the vicissitudes of capitalism.
Just about every morning I have a specific yogurt, Two Good Lemon. They are having “supply issues” and the yogurt might be going away forever. Don’t get me started about Jack’s The Works pizza.
And see my examples are all food. That’s funny.
That’s one of the things I like about Trader Joe’s. There are not TOO many choices in their product lines, and not many other brands other than their own. Makes shopping faster and easier.