Shopkeepers are turning into customers! Strange to hear, is it? But day-in-and-day-out it is probably becoming a reality as it seems the new trend which is fast emerging. It is very common to see many of the retail vegetable or grocery items shopkeepers or their employees picking vegetables, grocery items, etc. and putting in baskets, just like any other customers in the shop. Even in the billing counter, one can find many baskets full of items procured but no customers standing nearby or no one to make payment on the spot for those articles. It is actually the service done for the ‘distant’ customers. Not like social distancing, but it is a different kind of keeping distance. It is not that the shopkeepers are choosing the vegetables or grocery items for themselves but they are just-like customers but not real customers in the true sense of the term as the payment for the goods procured is made via online mode of payment subsequent to delivery of the goods to those distant home-sitting customers, so to say lazy customers.
It may not be surprising that even the grocery items or vegetables delivered on door might be collected by the domestic servant who might also be playing the role of cooking the food. So, what is left is just the work of eating. But till date, thank God, at least that work is done by the concerned individual himself/herself and no outsource has yet started for that, maybe because, after all, it is eating for one’s own stomach and getting satiated. There are similar jokes making rounds in social media, where one finds an affluent visitor to the Gym sitting idly at one place near the exercise machines but not doing any physical exercise and upon a friend’s asking as to why he is not doing exercise, reply comes that he is a rich man and that how can rich man do exercise himself, they have servants for that. Similar to that joke is the one I am mentioning in this write-up. Vegetables are procured by one, cooked by another and ultimately eating part which is the ‘most difficult task’ for such busy people is the only thing undertaken by the so-called customer who really pays for the product purchased.
Surprisingly, even the shopkeepers select the fresh and good products for delivery at home as otherwise they have the fear of losing on those distant or online customers who might switch to some other outlets which are available in large numbers nowadays if the items supplied are not up to the mark or fresh. If someone thinks that those online or distant customers are busy like a bee, it is just a misconception. For, those distant customers have all the time available in the world for going on morning or evening walks, run or jog in polluted and traffic-ridden roads or run with their pet dog in parks or in their vicinity or undertake yoga or go to Gym, etc. but to go for purchasing vegetables and groceries, oh no, they will ask or surf in the net to find where is the nearest online facility providing shops, or send their domestic maid to go and procure the vegetables and groceries.
The Corona pandemic period has also added to the phenomenon of online purchases to some extent. If one does one’s work oneself, then there will hardly be any need for going to gym or do yoga etc. But then this new trend has become a fashion statement among many of the customers and they in fact feel ashamed to go for buying vegetables or groceries or to carry it themselves to home. And then, there are other kind of customers who come to the shops but they need labour to take the stuff to their home. Still understandable, it might be because of some ailment but at the same time there are some lazy customers who fell reluctant to carry the weight and utilise the free door delivery services provided by the shop. Now the society is becoming such that one need not come out of the house for absolutely anything, as everything is available online and payment also made online or on arrival. Even Doctors are available online who prescribe the medicines and the medicines also, just like vegetables or groceries, are now delivered at doorstep. Just if one has to undergo some surgery, then only the need of the Hospital is felt, otherwise now there is no need to come out of the house and one can comfortably confine oneself within the four walls of one’s home.
But it is once again a misconception that if one goes to Gym then only one becomes smart. Recently, newspaper reports abound of news such as a labourer in Kerala becoming a model as he maintained his six-abs just by doing menial jobs and similarly another news item appeared wherein it was mentioned that a balloon selling girl also became a model. It is clear that one’s smartness is inborn quality and is not moulded by going to Gym and undertaking other kinds of work-ups and even if there appears some change in body structure it will be temporary and the time one stops going to Gym, one’s body is back to square one. Human body is made such that doing regular domestic chorus keeps one fit and fine and one may forget going to Gym or doing Yoga and definitely say a goodbye to such habit of purchasing almost everything online. It is not that online purchases should be stopped forthwith but needs to be restricted to goods which are not readily available in nearby local shops or is hard to procure.
