The January 4, 1959 edition of Closer Than We Think illustrated the corner grocermat of the future. The modular/mobile nature of the whole idea is reminiscent of the "farm to market" trains featured in Magic Highway, U.S.A. They certainly could have inspired the "mobile malls" of 1981 we looked at a while back.

Here's an idea to make marketing faster and easier! As proposed by the Clark Equipment Company of Battle Creek, Michigan, it involves the use of self-service "food banks" that would be preloaded with bread, milk, soups, etc., at the wholesaler's and then hauled to handy neighborhood locations for the convenience of retail shoppers.

The idea might be further developed to enable the housewife to drive around an oval arrangement of such preloaded display sections and pick out what was needed. A clerk would put the desired groceries on a moving belt which would move when the auto did, so that the purchases would wind up at the checkout counter at the same time the driver did. They'd be packaged and paid for - all with the customer still seated at her wheel.

Thanks to Tom Z. for this color edition of Closer Than We Think.

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Farm to Market (1958)
• Closer Than We Think (1958-1963)
• Disney's Magic Highway, U.S.A. (1958)
• Mobile Malls (1981)
• GM's Shopping Cart Car (1964)
  
• Shopper Hoppers (1959)

The August 2, 1959 Chicago Tribune ran this Closer Than We Think strip about personal flying platforms of the future. It's in an image like this that I realize how fundamentally different our world would be had the flying car ever become a reality. You just can't beat an "over the rooftops" perspective.

A kind of "flying carpet" may be the answer to the problem of personal transportation in the future. The flying platforms shown here would be suitable for such uses as low altitude hops to neighboring shops.

 

Military models of these "hoppers" have already been developed at Piasecki Aircraft and Chrysler. The flat platforms are lifted by air blasts through ducts at the bottom. The vanes of the ducts are movable, to permit control of direction. These vehicles would hover like helicopters and move at city traffic speeds. Construction would be simple, and costs could be kept low enough for civilian requirements.

Next Week: Farm Rainmakers

See also:
Online Shopping (1967)
GM's Shopping Cart Car (1964)

The 1966 book Automobiles of the Future features these images of General Motor's Runabout concept car. Besides having three wheels it also features a built-in shopping cart that slides out of the trunk:

Two views of the GM three-wheeled Runabout. This car of tomorrow is fitted with two shopping carts that make up the car's trunk area. The experimental design has been operated with all-electronic controls in proving ground tests.

See also:
GM Car of the Future (1962)
Automobiles of the Future (1966)
Sports Car of Tomorrow (1966)
Disney's Magic Highway, U.S.A. (1958)
The Future World of Transportation

Terry R. Hiller wrote an article titled "Going Shopping in the 1990s" for the December, 1983 issue of The Futurist magazine. Mr. Hiller was understandably skeptical of the prospect of electronic shopping. However, many of the things he asserted would not come to pass did indeed happen.

An excerpt appears below, along with graphics from the piece.

Nor is electronic retailing equipped to deal with the logistics of delivery. Product information, selection, and billing can all be transmitted electronically, but physical merchandise must be physically moved. Today's mail-order houses depend on federal or private package delivery, services that are simply not structured for the huge traffic increases that large-scale teleshopping would generate. It would require not only the total restructuring of existing routes and systems, but an investment of billions of dollars in equipment and personnel - resources we are simply unable to spare either now or in the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, since teleshoppers can only view products piecemeal, electronic marketing has severe drawbacks as a retailing device. In nine square feet of drugstore shelf space, you might easily encounter as many as 80 or more different brands and sizes of cold remedies. But in electronic marketing, shelf space is defined as time- the number of second an item appears on the screen. Allowing even 10 seconds per item, it would take more than 13 minutes to show that same 80 items. Add to this the cost of production, handling, and shipping, and we begin to suspect that the "convenience" of electronic marketing will be very expensive. Unless we are prepared to sacrifice variety - and therefore competition - some products will never be purchased "in absentia."


See also:
Online Shopping (1967)
Mobile Malls (1981)

The February, 1981 issue of The Futurist featured this illustration of a "mobile mall" of the future. Below are excerpts from the accompanying article.

"It will be the age-old concept of the traveling merchant; but instead of camels or sailing vessels, the retailer of the future will transport his material via superhighway and erect his store on site," says the originator of the retailing on wheels concept, Elinor Selame of Selame Design in Massachusetts.

The advantage of mobile malls lies in their simplicity, economy, and mobility. Retailing on wheels, Selame argues, may be a popular marketing response in an era of shrinking energy supplies and hard-bargaining consumers.

See also:
Online Shopping (1967)

The most accurate prediction of the 1967 film 1999 A.D. was that of "fingertip shopping". With a video console channeled into the store of your choice you could (gasp!) shop from home.

The "electronic correspondence machine" (or "home post office") was also quite visionary, although it seems no one was betting on the QWERTY keyboard.

You can find 1999 A.D. on the DVD Yesterday's Tomorrows Today, released by A/V Geeks.

See also:
1999 A.D. (1967)
Monsanto House of the Future (1957-1967)