It’s Not Your Grandma’s Shopping Experience Anymore

I needed an anniversary card pronto.

I didn’t need a gift. Catherine and I don’t exchange gifts much anymore. We just don’t need any more stuff. But a card is still expected. Cards can even be ones we exchanged in previous years since Catherine saves them. I don’t. I’m not that organized.

I prefer giving new cards but times have obviously changed. I used to be able to stop downtown and take my pick of many stores that sold greeting cards. The Party Shop and Corner Drug come to mind but there were others.

Today, as far as I know, the only store downtown with more than a token greeting card section is Family Fare and their selection is limited because their focus is on food. There are probably other shops downtown that have a spin rack of cards.

It seemed that the rack I looked through was about 90% birthday cards – For Him, For Her, For Son, For Daughter. It was like a genealogy chart of birthday cards. I didn’t see where it ended but it was probably For Great-Great-Grandmother.

Card Hunt

But anniversary cards? A few selections were For Husband. There were no For Wife. I couldn’t even find a For Wife section. I had to resort to an overly sweet card from the For Us section. I don’t think I’ll start saving cards with this one.

Now I know there are several stores in West Red Wing (Burnside) that sell greeting cards. But is it worth a drive out there for one card? When it comes to a birthday or anniversary card for my wife, the answer is a definite yes. For a graduation card, no. But I’d drive downtown for one.

If I’m picking up a prescription, I have to drive out there. There’s only one pharmacy left downtown and, sure enough, it’s at Family Fare. When I was 16, I worked after school at Corner Drug downtown. We made free deliveries multiple times a day. Today, if I want my prescriptions delivered from Walgreens, it’s $5.99 for same day delivery and $3.99 within one to two business days.

Remember how we paid for things? It seemed that Mom wrote checks for a living. I’m not sure my folks even had a credit card until I was grown and gone. I think you had to pay an annual fee for credit cards back then. Consumers didn’t want to be on the hook for that, so the merchant took on the cost and raised their prices. Some stores now charge a fee for using a credit card.

My folks charged at Corner Grocery and the Farmer Store because they shopped there a lot and one monthly bill was more convenient. There were no debit cards back then. You had separate savings and checking accounts because you earned interest on the savings account. But that required you to transfer from savings to checking so you could pay for things. And there was a “dime-a-time” fee for each check you wrote.

Checking Out

Now some stores, like Target, have stopped accepting checks. Disallowing checks speeds up the checkout process. Who wants to wait for someone to write a check? I think the only improvement in the use of checks is the ability, awkward as it is, to deposit a check from anywhere using a cellphone.

The two biggest shopping changes in my life are big box stores and internet shopping. Most of our everyday needs have been consolidated into the big stores. That way you can conveniently buy bananas and a big screen TV at the same time.

Those stores are also our source of immediate gratification when we just have to buy something right now. Like that TV.

“Honey, I’m going to the store to buy bananas. I’ll be right back.”

If we’re into the excitement of anticipation, we order on the internet, sometimes from the same big box stores.

We used to have department stores downtown – Spurgeon’s, Boxrud’s, JC Penny and the Farmer Store. But they have disappeared, replaced by big box stores in West Red Wing.

Our downtown shopping is limited. There is one florist and no shoe stores. Two hardware stores are located on opposite ends of downtown. Appliance and furniture stores have moved to West Red Wing. And there’s just the one drug store.

The downtown core is now mostly professional offices, specialty stores, restaurants and a couple banks. So we’re resigned to driving to West Red Wing for much of our shopping. Maybe we were spoiled. But it’s not all bad. People that live in the Twin Cities or even Rochester have been driving much further for their shopping for a long time.

Shopping for services is also changing. How often have you seen plumber and electrician service trucks from the Twin Cities in town? You know, the ones you see advertised on TV? If they are willing to come to Red Wing for work, they are either desperate or growing. I’ll bet it’s the latter.

To me, that’s a sign that we’re becoming a metro suburb, which is inevitable. Ellsworth, after all, is part of the metro area and Red Wing is not.

Frankly, I thought it would have started sooner.