March 26, 2026

A tale of two shopping bags

After dinner tonight, my wife shared two news stories about shopping bags that had crossed her radar almost simultaneously:

Shoppers were outraged that they suddenly had to start paying $0.10 for shopping bags.
Shoppers were lining up around the block to buy Trader Joe’s shopping bags for $4.

My reply:

People think pricing is math.

Pricing is not math.

Pricing is psychology.

Yours,

—J