What those larger shops provide is the opportunity to have multiple options in the same place. We have a small independent shop nearby that I’ll use regularly, but often enough the selection is limited and the turnover questionable. I can still find Christmas decorated cereal there into mid spring often enough, which is far less a problem than it is for the produce offerings.

The lack of bringing things to a local store though doesn’t inherently mean that these places then need to squeeze every dime by effectively asking the customers to play the role of employees rather than offering that job to someone who might just be looking for a couple extra bucks to help out or fill some idle time, the bored retiree type.

This isn’t limited to grocery stores of course, hardware and general retail are just as bad about it. It’s a persistent trend where the end customer gets treated more and more like a given who won’t leave regardless of how they’re treated.