Choices, choices, choices…

Nowadays when you walk down the aisles of any grocery store you’ll have to choose between several variations of the same product. Take cereal for instance. When I was a kid I could probably count all the different varieties of cereal for sale at the local Piggly Wiggly and not have to use all of my fingers. But now the stores have an entire aisle devoted just to cereal. In addition to the old tried and true Cheerios, you can now buy Frosted Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, Banana Nut Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, Multigrain Cheerios, Fruity Cheerios, Berry Burst Cheerios, Yogurt Burst Cheerios…well, you get the point.
 
Cheerios is just an example of course. There are numerous varieties of cereals from Kellogg and Post as well. It seems to me that the cereal companies would enjoy higher profits if they didn’t have to spend a gazillion dollars advertising a hundred different varieties of their products. And from the customer’s viewpoint, why should it take an hour and a half just to look through all the different cereals on the shelves to find the one I’m looking for? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for having multiple choices, but do we really need a dozen different types of Cheerios?
 
Of course this “consumer overload” phenomenon isn’t limited to just groceries. Have you been down a laundry detergent aisle lately? How about shampoo? I guess I’m old-fashioned as they say, but I think shopping should be a pleasant task, not one that’s gonna keep me in the store from dawn till dusk and cause me a major headache every time I venture out to buy a can of pork and beans or a bar of soap. I suppose that “progress” always results in change, but sometimes I long for the good ole days when you could fill a shopping cart to the brim in about 15 minutes because you knew exactly what you wanted and exactly where to find it.