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this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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That's not actually true.
It looks true on the surface, but because of the way global shipping and trade is set up, they are predicting how much products they need, how many workers they need, on any given day. If folks don't buy anything on a day that they are expecting to sell stuff, they waste all of that labor. They waste all of those resources, in the sense of keeping the lights on. Keeping the heat on.
Companies have overhead. A day with depressed profits throws off their expectations and that costs them money.
The theory is fine, but there are several practical issues that mitigate the effect.
First, and most obvious, not everyone is participating. In fact, I'd bet that most people ignore the protest and go about their day without realizing there is a boycott. Nobody can block all the gas stations and supermarkets to keep customers away, so most stores won't actually experience a perceptible loss, at least not enough to justify closing shop for the day. A lot of people exist without buying anything some days anyway. Stores will occasionally have days with low sales due to weather, or local festivities, or bad press, or
Second, the people participating are being told to get their shopping done the day before or wait until the day after to buy what they need. The boost in sales on either side will average out the labor and heating costs for stores. Most employees are paid weekly or biweekly, and a single day of low traffic something most shops already expect every now and then.
Third, this will mean nothing at all to online sales. Unless you're Amazon or Instacart, hardly anyone does same day delivery services. Your daily overhead surplus capacity is a tiny fraction of the operating costs for the business. Online retailers measure activity in quarters, they don't care about slow days.
Lastly, it's far too diffuse to result in effective change. The loss is spread out over all commerce which means that nobody specific will be affected. What are the grievances? Who are you asking to change? What specifically are you asking them to do? If the demands for people to return to shopping are simply "wait 24 hours" then the ruling class can wait it out. The is exactly what happened with Occupy Wall Street. There was no clear endgame, so all they had to do was wait while the effort collapsed on itself. If it's a hostage negotiation, you need demands. If it's a show of force, then it needs to have more impact. If it's an effort to educate consumers on the value of consuming less, then it needs to not be described as a temporary protest.
To be meaningful, it would help to be
I'll be participating because I agree with the sentiment (and I'm cash poor, so any excuse to save money), but I'm not holding my breath that it will make anyone change their behaviors.
Yeah, I'm not holding my breath either. I think it's a start. I don't know if it's the greatest start but it's a start.
Targeted blackout March 7th through 14th, Amazon.
I used to do production coordination. This isn't an issue. If Tony expects to sells two peaches a day, but this week he sold three yesterday and one today it's all the same. The amounts average out over time. You will have to hit them for much, much longer than a day to have ANY effect.
One day or a handful of days is meaningless slacktivism.
Perhaps it wasn't an issue for the company you worked for. A large distributor may only have so much room in their warehouse, and expect inventory to clear in order to receive shipments that are due. Peaches can rot. Etc.
I mean, you're right it's going to be a drop in the bucket overall. But it is a beginning.
And the more folks who participate, the bigger that drop is going to be
The production shelf space was the premium. By the time a distributor has it, it matters far less.
This isn't a beginning. This is going to be a huge blow to the movement when nothing happens.