rant on making buying stuff easier: a US consumer UX improvement idea!

the user: anyone buying anything in a store or online in the US and A

the problem:
when you go to buy something,

• the price is often in a strangely uneven amount like $3.99, $67.45, $.44, etc. and
• sales tax is not included and its always another strange amount when you  check out.

thus, buying shit can be annoying — calculating in your head how much a bunch of stuff will cost. and, when you pay its never an even amount. you don’t know the real total amount until you check out.

this results in an inefficient check out process — the buyer does not know the complete, total price until his items are rung up by a cashier and calculated by the cash register. if a buyer knows the full amount before check out they could have the $ ready to hand over. also, these strangely uneven amounts result in counting uneven amounts of change.

the solution:

• fuck sales tax. i don’t care what it is. when shops sell shit, they should include the sales tax in the price. i want a nice even, total price so i can easily add up several items before i get to the register.
• the price should be a nice round amount that is easy to dig out of your wallet/purse, e.g. $4.00, $20.00, $1.00, $5.00, $40.00 etc. you get the idea. AND SALES TAX IS INCLUDED IN THAT AMT.

imagine you walk through your corner grocer and grab a bunch of items – $4, $4 , $8, $12. while u wait in line u can dig out $38 from your wallet and give it to the cashier. even if u have to hand over $40 that’s only 2 1s he has to give u back. VOILA! TIME SAVED and u can get out of there faster w/out dealing w/ annoying change!

what about things that are < $1? you ask. – how many things are there nowadays that cost < $1? for those things, at least make them in multiples of .25, or .10 or .05, OK? these < $1 things are not the annoyance. when was the last time u bought something that cost less than a dollar?

in europe when you buy stuff there’s no annoying sales tax. it makes fucking sense. why is the US so retarded in almost everything we do?!

sometimes i think to myself, “world (well, the USA really) stop wasting my time being stupid.”

end of rant.

Photo: Munch! by Burt Youngsters (Hitting & Running – Sorry!)