[hx8]

As someone that has lived in a walkable neighborhood with a lot of shopping let me tell you, it doesn't solve the problem.

Realistically you aren't going to reach more than 250k skus within a 20 minute walk of your home, and probably less. Even this is very heavily biased towards using retail space instead of space for anything else (homes, restaurants, parks, offices). You can only build up to add more space within a 20 minute walk so much, because traveling vertically takes time.

With only 250k skus, you're still ordering from outside of walking distance often for items. This is much less variety then the average consumer is use to. Now, you have a dense area with lots of people and lots of business all needing goods brought in and waste brought. It's doable, but requires the right planned infrastructure, and people start trying to optimize the last mile with ideas like package lockers.

EDIT: It's probably possible to reach 250k if you heavily lean on books/cds/dvds with only a few copies each. The actual daily items you'd expect a store to keep in stock (and thus need more inventory of each sku) end up just consuming a lot of space.

[tstenner]

I live in a walkable quarter and I can reach three full supermarkets and 2 specialty supermarkets within 5 minutes. Doesn't matter whether I need to stock up on milk, vegetables or hand peeled shrimp in garlic sauce, I can get it. Same with public schools (5 within a 2 mile radius), childcare (3), hospitals (2) and the park.

[card_zero]

I don't get the argument either. Perhaps if you can't walk very far? If I put half an hour into walking I can easily buy all the essentials, such as a crash cymbal, oil of violets, steel nibs for my dip pen, a CD player, and a teapot.

[Insanity]

I live in a metropolitan area and can walk to many stores within a 30 minute radius. (First supermarket is less than 5 minutes away).

But there is the added complication of weight. I can’t buy food for a week without driving there. Nor can I go and buy a TV by just walking to the hardware store.

[willlma]

30 minutes is on the longer side, but I think part of the point of walkable grocery runs is that you don't buy a week's worth of food like you do in a car. When I lived in Paris, I'd happily pop out to buy whatever I needed for a single meal. I had so many grocery stores within a 5-minute walk. Now that I'm in SF, I buy for the week (on my bike with panier bags) because the grocery stores I like are far from my home.

[oblio]

It's an infrastructure thing. With the right regular/cargo bike or even better, an ebike/cargo ebike, 30-40kg of groceries per run is super doable.

> Nor can I go and buy a TV by just walking to the hardware store.

Do you buy a TV more than once every 5-10 years? You can rent a small van or whatever.

[Insanity]

You definitely need infrastructure for that. Biking infrastructure in North American cities is.. not great. Definitely viable in some of the EU ones though.

[mike50]

Personally owned folding shopping carts exist.

[Insanity]

Used to do this in Belgium. Still less convenient than driving, and kinda annoying to use during a Canadian winter.

And again, more limited space.

I commute by walking (1h per day) and typically avoid the car when possible, but for groceries there’s just no way I’d go back to walking to and fro.

[cogman10]

For those to be effective, you do need good walking infrastructure.

I'd grab one of those except for the fact that I don't have a sidewalk connecting me to the grocery store. Totes end up working better for me as a result.

[SkiFire13]

> Doesn't matter whether I need to stock up on milk, vegetables or hand peeled shrimp in garlic sauce

I don't even consider those when shopping online.

[jstanley]

Ok but that doesn't come close to the variety of products you can buy online.

[hx8]

I think this is the point I was trying to make, but didn't make as clearly as I wanted.

Sure I could buy two or three different types of keyboards within walking distance, but none of them used my favorite mechanical switches. I was constantly facing choices where I would either need to travel by vehicle to a speciality store (train, bus or car), or I would order the item in. Judging by the flow of packages into my multi-residential building others were facing the same choice.

[no-name-here]

> none of them used my favorite mechanical switches

One of the major points(/claims?) of the OP article is that fewer choices is better, pointing to how Costco has just 4k SKUs (paragraphs 4, 5, 6, and some within later paragraphs). <shrug>

[danny_codes]

Sure, but 98% of what you buy is is either in the set of SKUs near you or substitutable for them. Near you only applies if you live among actual density of course.

[tstenner]

Ironically I found my current keyboard (a quite nice Cherry) in a store near me. For specialty parts where it doesn't make sense to have to them sitting around in stores everywhere online shopping is still allowed, but I only need to order something every few weeks

[throw1234567891]

As you have to carry everything, how often do you go shopping?

[gcanyon]

Maybe I'm unusual, but I live in NYC, with a grocery store a two minute walk away, a Target and Trader Joe's a three minute walk away, and a Whole Foods a four minute walk away. (and various bodegas within minutes as well)

I went to that grocery store twice yesterday (picked up a bag of popcorn and a bottle of water to go to the movies, then later some potatoes and sour cream for dinner). I'm going in a few minutes to get eggs for lunch. So three times in the last 24 hours :-)

[chrsw]

It's not unusual, but most people can't afford to live in NYC.

[gcanyon]

You're reminding me of the Yogi Berra quote (paraphrasing): "New York is so expensive no one lives there anymore."

You're not wrong, but millions (literally) of people do afford to live in NYC. I live in Harlem, which is more fun and more affordable than many areas.

[chrsw]

I didn't mean nobody lives there. I meant if you plucked random people from all over the country and told them to relocate to NYC, odds are they would need a massive income increase to survive. And even then, it would be touch-and-go for most.

I'm from Harlem, and other parts of NYC. I moved out to pursue a career in an industry that is relatively non-existent in the NYC metro area. If I moved back now I could probably afford it on my current salary. But there are no jobs there for what I do. And if there was a bigger tech industry in NYC the costs would likely be even higher.

[Broken_Hippo]

not who you were asking, but I walk to the store and carry my groceries home. Usually, twice a week or something. It's great. 10 minute walk each way, approximately, and never more than I can easily carry. I buy for two people. I'd go more often if I shopped for more. I do occasionally visit other stores - once or twice a month - because they have different selection of goods. To be fair, I'm still carrying the stuff because I walk or use a bus for most of my transportation needs.

It means my fridge can be smaller because I don't need to keep as much in there. It means it is really easy to shop whatever is on sale - I have two grocery stores near me. I rarely have vegetables that go bad because I can just buy the stuff I need. I can just stop on the way home from work if I'm working the day shift.

I did this for a while when I lived in the states, too, in a small town. I had a similar experience, but it was far less convenient and really only doable because I was in such a small town and lived alone.

[yw3410]

Similar - realistically, unless you're stuck at home in a city, you can also plan to stop off somewhere on your way back from some event. If you mostly walk/public transport the overhead of this is very low.

If your events are regular, then you don't need to do the research each time either; and it becomes maybe an extra five or ten minutes.

[frrlpp]

You clearly have no family

[Broken_Hippo]

I clearly said I buy for two and would go more often if I shopped for more. Many, many people with families do this.

I'm in Norway. Vehicles are expensive, children (regardless of age) are used to going outside and going to the stores. It is a common situation in larger cities. Heck, elementary children are often enough at the store unsupervised. I'm not sure why you think a 20-30 minute car ride plus at least an hour at the store is worse than a 20 minute round trip to the store with a 10-15 minute store break is bad, even if it is a few times a week. And even that can be avoided by just spending a little time on your way home from work.

[tstenner]

I have a family of four and we manage just fine. The kids aren't toddlers any more (which only means that we can't put everything in the bottom layer of the stroller), but when they come to the age where they eat a week's shopping in a single sitting they will be old enough to take over a few shopping trips on their own.

[s1artibartfast]

yeah, I think people come at this from very different life expectations. It is hard to take a toddler, a weeks groceries, and 50lb bag of dog food on a bike or bus.

Living without a car is easily possible, lots of parts of europe do it. They do it by living in small aparments, consuming less with more staples

[tstenner]

Depends on how much we need. There are two car sharing stations next to the super markets when we need to stock up on long lasting basics, but I typically cover half a week (full family) in a trip. The nice thing is that when you absolutely need something (either for a recipe or when one of the kids has a sudden urgent urge) it's no big deal

[victorbjorklund]

Jesus no wonder Americans are so fat when they don’t even have strength enough to carry their shopping bags

[throw1234567891]

It’s funny that you assume I’m a fat American. Don’t assume so much. And what does Jesus have to do with it.

[victorbjorklund]

I never assumed that you're fat. I have no idea what your BMI is. It was more a comment about Americans not being able to use their bodies to carry their own groceries. Of course being lacy and not able to do physical work can still mean that you're skinny. It wasn't a comment about you personally but about your culture.

[throw1234567891]

I mean, you assume I'm American.

[goosejuice]

250k skus seems pretty arbitrary. What's the significance of this number? A bodega goes a long way for most people's daily needs.

[hx8]

I picked 250k sku because I think that is really close to maximum sku density, based on my experience designing planograms for certain retailers known for sku density. This maximum number of skews leans heavily towards spending space on retail instead of the other things you'd expect from a city like homes, restaurants, parks, service based business, offices, etc.

[beAbU]

A bodega is often (and usually unavoidably) more expensive than a bigger grocery retail chain that's further away.

Price conscious buyers will opt to drive to the bigger, farther away store because it has more variety, and the essentials are cheaper.

I know I do this.

[BobaFloutist]

Part of this is defacto deregulation allowing suppliers to overcharge smaller stores with less purchasing power than big chains. (The policy not to enforce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson%E2%80%93Patman_Act).

Part of this is overregulation, with zoning and planning departments enacting policies that make smaller retail spaces less attractive to builders and owners, leading to a low supply, and allowing egregious rent for well located small retail.

Yes, economies of scale likely mean that larger businesses can afford lower prices, but smaller businesses also get to avoid some costs (no large administrative corporate departments necessary for a one-location bodega), so the prices probably don't need to be as far apart as they are.

[twoodfin]

Why should the government have anything to say about price negotiations between producers and retailers of frozen pizzas?

Robinson-Patman is terrible law that’s more or less impossible to enforce equitably. So it hasn’t been.

[me-vs-cat]

Lax RPA enforcement may have significantly contributed to food deserts. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/food-deser...

I hope government representatives have things to say about that.

[twoodfin]

That’s not really responsive to my concerns about Robinson-Patman.

A world where it’s enforced uniformly and strictly might have some local benefits, but getting the government involved in regulating every wholesale transaction for “fairness” is a recipe for stagnation, corruption, or more likely both.

[kakacik]

Everybody does this, unless its 10pm on Saturday and you are thankfully kissing the hand of bodega owner for being open at such absurd hour

[beAbU]

All grocery stores close at 10 here (Ireland) but yes you are right. My local centra, 1km away is used for cheese, milk and beer runs. Everything else I get at the big lidl 15km away.

[inigyou]

There's a full supermarket a 10 minute walk from me because it's a dense area.

[hx8]

This is the ideal situation, and common in most west cost dense areas, but not true for every dense mixed use area. Specifically it's common in low-income high-density housing to not have sufficient super market coverage.

[close04]

It’s an unrealistic number to justify the argument. Unless you consume for the sake of consuming, there’s no way anyone needs an offer that rich for routine usage.

Aldi and Lidl carry ~2-3k SKUs. A regular grocery will carry maybe 20k. In places where enough of these are built close to where people actually live you don’t ever need to touch the car for shopping. Small shopping centers (those that also have a something like a small book store) will add a few more thousands. A requirement of 250k SKUs in a 20min walking distance is going in the territory of once in a year or more purchases.

I think I drove to do groceries a handful of times in the last 10 years. I have multiple chains close enough that I can always walk, I can buy smaller batches and always have fresh food rather than a truckload to last a whole week but be stale by the end. Self checkouts and the abundance of stores means I have almost 0 wait time.

It can work but it has to be designed properly, and people need to change their habits a bit. Like not expecting hundreds of thousands of SKUs 10 min away at all times (which implies a huge store, so far from where people live).

[mongol]

I use to shop at Lidl. As you say, they carry a limited SKU assortment. But I have found it doesn't really matter. When I go to a grocery store that carries more variety, it feels exciting, but in the end it makes no difference. As long as I can get the essentials, I will manage. I don't need 20 types of hamburger dressing. I can make my own from first principles. I don't need 40 types of yoghurt. I buy can natural and eat with fresh fruit. And so on.

Lidl also has this interesting approach that they rotate some assortment. You can't find everything all the time. But once you realize that certain things periodically come back, you pick them up when they are in stock to make sure you have them at home. It is not as convenient, but if you make it a habit, it is a very minor disadvantage.

[close04]

The rotation is because they stock the product for which they can negotiate the best discount.

But as you say the 20k SKUs premium stores stock aren’t a necessity. They drive up the costs for the store and the price for the buyer all so the buyer has the feeling they bought something different, when many brands are anyway the same product under different labels.

The premium store 3 minutes from my home stocks 30 types of mineral water. Aldi and Lidl stock maybe 3 of those 30. That’s what 99% of people buy anyway.

[robocat]

> That’s what 99% of people buy anyway

Until there's one less common thing you want. If you don't care much about flavour or have no taste in products then you can sub in any crap food or product.

I go to a particular supermarket because it has the tomatoes I like: they just can't be substituted. It also has an uncommon milk that is the only one I really like. The issue gets harder once you desire specific Deli foods.

How much of SKU selection is driven by individual consumer tastes? Some brand selection is driven by other causes.

[close04]

That’s fine, you’ll just need to walk 10min extra to the specialty/ethnic/Deli store which stocks that. Supply is proportional to the demand so you can’t expect every niche item to be sold right next to you. How many types of milk can every store stock just so everyone can see their niche preference 10 min walk from anywhere?

250k SKUs means everything anyone would ever want. But the distribution of the demand for those SKUs is very lopsided. 20k are what everyone buys. Another 20k are probably things almost nobody buys. So how could you have both high and low demand items spread equally through a city without creating waste? If everything needs to be 10-20 min from you then somewhere a store is sitting empty with barely any customers or a shelf isn’t touched by anyone. The logistics for stocking and supplying products almost nobody buys costs everyone else.

[rahimnathwani]

For reference, Google tells me that the largest Argos stores in the UK have only ~20k SKUs in stock.

[ssl-3]

One article I found[1] says that a Kroger store typically carries about 15k SKUs.

As another point of comparison: Costco themselves say[2] that they have about 4k SKUs, and state that most supermarkets have about 30k SKUs.

---

Anecdotally, I can find just about everything I want, in terms of consumables, at Kroger.

Sometimes I walk over to the bodega instead. They don't have much for inventory outside of beer/smokes/soda, and their selection of actual food is both limited and expensive. But it's only a block away, so...

[1]: https://www.foodindustry.com/articles/the-largest-supermarke...

[2]: https://www.costco.com/f/-/about

[hx8]

A full sized target would have about 80k skus. A small independent book store might have 25k skus stocked. A Sephora would stock 20k different skus.

I think people are underestimating the variety of products that are available.

[account42]

I don't think counting SKUs gives you a very useful metric. For example my local grocery store has a whole isle of different flours. Sounds great but its just a couple of brands each having their own interchangeable version of five or so standard flours with barely anything outside that range. That's not to stay that having choice for the "same" product is never useful but clearly not all additional SKUs provide the same amount of additional useful choice.

[nnevod]

I suppose for the absolute majority of use cases, much less SKUs have to be present at store with immediate availibility for purchase, and the rest could be ordered online with delivery to the walkable store, resulting in efficient delivery and little effort required from customer, which isn't bad from health perspective.

[BobaFloutist]

I think it would still be a vast improvement if online shopping was relegated back to only a narrow set of specialty goods.

And this is ignoring the possibility of ordering less time sensitive specialty goods to a relevant store, where they can arrive on an existing shipment and share an errand with whatever else you might want from that store.

[WarmWash]

A lot of trendy ideas have come out of the internet, but I don't think any of them have achieved the religious status of "fuckcars" (aka walkable neighborhoods).

Its not that the ideas are bad or wholly wrong, but their is a sizeable contingent of followers who believe that walkable living is a silver bullet that fixes everything. Everything.

So to someone who happens to fall into contact with an evangelist, they sit and listen for a few minutes, and then come away like they just learned who the real God is. Any societal or personal illness you can think of, the Church of Fuckcars has a confident and surface level "makes sense" answer.

[olalonde]

I second. I live right above a shopping mall and next to Dongmen, which is easily one of the largest shopping areas in the world, yet I still end up ordering most things online.