Paying For Convenience

For the last several months I've been waiting impatiently for the release of American Gangster on DVD. When we watched the movie last year in the theater, we hurriedly left as they were running the narratives at the end of the movie because we had to pick up the kids from night childcare before they closed at 9 pm. We could have watched till the end of the movie but the kids hate it when they are the last ones to be picked and we wanted to save them from the agony of waiting for us.

This past Tuesday, the movie was released on DVD and my plan was to make sure I watch it again over the weekend. My choices were, to buy the DVD for $17 or rent out the DVD for less. As this is not a movie I would like lying around in the house because of it's unsuitability for the young ones, my only option was to rent it. Even then, I had a choice as for where to rent it from. Either from Blockbuster's or the Redbox self service kiosks situated in McDonalds eateries. The difference being the price of the rental.

With Blockbuster, you pay $4.29 for a weeks rental during which you can watch the movie at your own liking. With Redbox, they charge $1.07 per night for the duration you rent the DVD. The difference between the two options, is that there is no rush with watching the DVD from Blockbuster as you have up to 10 days to do so. Even though in both cases, most people watch the movie just once, you pay an extra $3 dollars for the convenience of renting it from Blockbuster.

And so it seems with life in general. Take another example of soda. You have the option of buying Sprite in various sized bottles or cans. The largest size is a 2 liter bottle and the smallest sized Sprite comes in a 8 oz can. The latter is sold in a 8 can pack while the former comes as a single bottle. Even though the bottle contains more soda than the 8 oz pack combined, it retails for as low as $1 depending on where you buy it. With the 8 pack, you pay $3 for the convenience of the smaller sized cans that can be carried in a lunch pack or even a hand bag. It could be argued that the unit operations/inputs for the canned soda cost much more than that of the bottled soda and hence the price differential.

Sprite soda prices at my local Walmart Supercenter

Size	#'s	Price	Per fl Oz
2 Liter	1	$1.38	2.1 cents
500 ml	6	$3.30	2.3 cents
225 ml	8	$3.00	4.7 cents
500 ml	1	$1.28	6.4 cents

This difference in pricing extends across all sizes of Sprite sodas sold in supermarkets. The half liter bottle normally found at the checkouts, retails for as much if not more than the 2 liter bottle. For the price of 3 half liter bottles, you can head into the supermarket aisles and get yourself a 6 half liter pack of Sprite for $3.30 instead of the $1.28 that you would pay for the single bottles.

The convenience provided by vending machines is even costlier. A half liter bottle goes for $1.50 down the hallway at work. It's no wonder that every Monday morning, you'll see guys coming into work with packs of soda. Over the weekend, they'll shop for their drinks and snacks instead of getting them from the vending machine. For this reason, you'll find a 6 bottle pack of Sprite in my car trunk. Because I never know when I might need a soda, I have it in there just in case I am in need of a drink.

All this just goes to show that there is a huge market out there for convenience and people are willing to pay for it all in the name of simplifying their lifestyle. As they say, less is more. Or is it more is less?