Register Rage

As it turns out, you don’t have to drive a Hummer to have a tantrum in public anymore. And as someone who’s semi-permanently attached to a Toyota Camry, I’m happy to have a less income-driven opportunity to express myself.

VMSD’s editor-in-chief, Patricia Sheehan, recently wrote about the overuse of buzzwords like omni-channel, but as pop culture terms go, “register rage” is just making its debut.

There was the 77-year-old Floridian who was arrested after losing his cool in a Walmart express lane after a shopper ahead of him in line had two items too many. And Arizona State University study says 68 percent of households in 2013 reported retail rage in one or more members (up 8 percent from two years ago).

And while we bluster on about omni-channel and showrooming (last year’s leading buzzword) and experience with a capital “E,” your average shopper is living paycheck-to-paycheck. (Yes, with iPhone, iPad, iPod and designer handbag in tow.) Stained carpets, dressing room doors with broken locks, a trip to the grocery store punctuated by blaring ads over a junky sound system: these are just her normal shopping experiences.

So, are we surprised that the consumer is less concerned with whether the store can order her size if it’s out-of-stock (and if that’s the case, why wouldn’t she just order it online herself for a cheaper price?), than she is with stained carpet, clothing sure to dissolve tomorrow, flickering fluorescents and helpless salespeople?

It all boils down to that cash register inquiry: “Did you find everything you were looking for?” The question asks the shopper to surmount her own potential embarrassment for questionable gain. Most likely, whatever she wants isn’t in the store. Even if it is, does she want to chance the embarrassment of a public inquiry into whatever the item is? (Nothing Kotex, we hope.) Would she rather endure a public inquiry into the needed item and glares from customers waiting behind her, or simply go home and order whatever it is on Amazon?

Like the fictional Wisconsin kids in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegone, studies show that most people assume they are of above-average intelligence. Let’s not go out of our way to prove them wrong.

Retail rage is a symptom, however badly expressed, of the everyday failings of retail. Yet there’s so much retail can be – and is, in the world’s shopping meccas, which we showcase each month in VMSD. Let’s just not forget the little guy, whether s/he’s driving a Hummer or not.