S6E12 Eric Athas – Saying No To New

[00:00:00] Teaser

[00:00:00] ​

[00:00:01] Ricardo Belmar: In 1995, buying a pair of sneakers took you 30 minutes and five miles of driving to the mall

[00:00:07] Casey Golden: Today only takes a thumb swipe, and the gap we closed, that's where the customer used to spend time thinking.

[00:00:13] Ricardo Belmar: Our guest wrote a book about what that costs people. He's a New York Times editor, he spent four years on it, and he interviewed me for the research

[00:00:21] Casey Golden: So this isn't somebody throwing rocks at retail from the outside

[00:00:24] Ricardo Belmar: No, he knows exactly how we built it, which is why the question he asks next is the uncomfortable one

[00:00:31] Casey Golden: Stay with us

[00:00:32]

[00:00:43] Show Intro

[00:00:43] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome back to season six of the Retail Razor Show, the top ranked indie business management and marketing podcast on Goodpods, and the original show in the number one indie podcast network for retail.

[00:00:54] I'm Ricardo Belmar.

[00:00:55] Casey Golden: I'm Casey Golden.

[00:00:56] Welcome back, Retail Razor fans, to retail's favorite [00:01:00] podcast, where we cut through the clutter to give you sharp insights on what's happening in retail today and tomorrow, and where we get real about what's driving the future of commerce.

[00:01:09] Ricardo, I wanna open with a question. When was the last time you bought something and then couldn't actually remember deciding to buy it?

[00:01:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm. More often than I'm willing to admit on a hot mic.

[00:01:26] Casey Golden: Same. And that's the whole episode.

[00:01:29] Ricardo Belmar: Pretty much. Uh, this episode is a little different from our usual. Our guest isn't a retailer, and he isn't a technologist or an industry pundit. He's a New York Times editor, Eric Athas, and he has a new book called "Saying No to New: Why New Things Are Stealing Your Time, Money, and Happiness and How to Take Back Your Life"

[00:01:49] Casey Golden: And before anyone hears that and assumes it's a lifestyle book, it isn't. Eric spent years reporting this out. [00:02:00] Neuroscientists, behavioral economics, economists, ad industry veterans, tech insiders, an astronaut, and a real chunk of the research is about us, the retail people.

[00:02:11] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, he interviewed me for it back in 2024, talking about treasure hunt retail, and why the off-price guys keep shipping in fresh inventory to keep people hunting

[00:02:21] Casey Golden: Which reads a little differently sitting inside his argument than it did when you said it

[00:02:27] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, it really does, doesn't it? And that's just one example of how appealing and fun, yet totally different this conversation is going to be with Eric. He has a concept he calls The New Thing Gap. It's the time and distance between seeing something new and being able to get it. In 1995, that was probably a couple of days of thinking and a half-hour drive to the mall. Now, it's about four seconds. And our industry is the reason for that

[00:02:53] Casey Golden: So we're asking him the uncomfortable version of the question today. What did we take away when we took away the [00:03:00] friction? And what happens when agentic commerce closes the last piece of that gap? And you know how I feel about frictionless experiences.

[00:03:11] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, we're gonna get into all of that. I have to say, this is one of my most anticipated conversations of the year. It's longer than our usual, but, it's, it's worth it.

[00:03:22] But first, a quick word about the people who make this show possible, RetailClub

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[00:03:43] Hear from 150 leaders shaping how AI is being used across the industry, explore the technologies changing how retail works, and connect with senior leaders from across retail, brands, technology, and investment. Late registration is now available at retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast. [00:04:00] We'll see you in Huntington Beach!

[00:04:02] And now a quick word about our friends at Arizona State University.

[00:04:05] Okay, supply chain leaders, this one's for you. The W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University is running a three-day executive program October 5th through 7th called AI-Enabled Supply Chain Strategy. It comes out of their supply chain department ranked number two in the country, and it's built for senior leaders who need a real AI strategy across procurement, logistics, and operations.

[00:04:27] You'll leave with frameworks for evaluating AI opportunities, a clear read on where companies are getting genuine competitive advantage, and a room full of peers working the same problem. Seats are going fast, so don't wait. Register using the link and the special ID code RETAILRAZORASU shown in our show notes for $1,500 off.

[00:04:47] And catch our three-part Data Blades miniseries in September with Professor Brett Duarte for a preview. Now on to the episode.

[00:04:54] Casey Golden: All right. Our guest today is Eric Athas, deputy editor for newsroom development and [00:05:00] support at The New York Times. And here's the part I didn't know until we got on the phone with him. His first job in journalism was writing for a retail technology blog called Storefront Backtalk.

[00:05:13] Ricardo Belmar: Which means he's been circling the industry a lot longer than most of our guests. His book, Saying No To New, is out today. So, let's welcome Eric to the Retail Razor Show.

[00:05:30] Welcome to the Retail Razor Show, Eric Athas!

[00:05:30] Ricardo Belmar: Eric, welcome to the Retail Razor Show. I know I'm excited to have you join us today to talk about your book, espec- especially after we first, met and spoke about it, what, two years ago now? Yeah,

[00:05:41] Eric Athas: Maybe two years? It's, it's hard to tell

[00:05:43] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, it's hard to tell. It's hard to tell, but still, but still exciting to be talking about it now

[00:05:47] Eric Athas: Yeah

[00:05:48] Casey Golden: this, this topic is, is very close to my heart. It's, one I'm really looking forward to digging into. Granted, I like new things, but I also find so many things, [00:06:00] we're all pitched on turned out to be not so much, or lacking or compared to versions of the same thing from like a decade ago. I can think of many fashion and apparel examples, but also even in like tech too

[00:06:17] Eric Athas: Yeah, it sounds like we've got a lot to talk about. And, and thank you both for having me here. I'm really excited for this conversation

[00:06:24] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Well, let's, let's jump in.

[00:06:25] The Painter's Lie: Why We Believe New Is Always Better

[00:06:25] Ricardo Belmar: Eric, your book opens with, like a, a parable that I ab- I absolutely love this one. In fact, before you joined us and came on, we were just talking about it, where you have a painter standing in front of a blank canvas who decides that before she can paint, she really needs new brushes. and the new brushes turn into needing new brush holders and then new canvases, and then it turns into an entirely new studio that's sourced from her social feed. And, in all this time, that canvas never gets touched. and you write that, you know, modern humans have this, just fundamentally become that painter. so go ahead and kind [00:07:00] of let, let's start by making the case for us. You know, what, what is this lie we've all bought into, and why is it costing us more than we realize?

[00:07:06] Eric Athas: Well, the lie is that newer is always better, that a new pair of sunglasses is always better than the one you had two years ago, or a new car is certainly better than the last edition. A new outfit is better than the one in your closet. And that is fundamentally what this artist's story was meant to illustrate, is that everywhere we turn in modern life, that idea that new is always better is reinforced over and over and over again.

[00:07:43] You go into any store, you go onto social media, you go online, new is always better. There's very few spaces that you can go to where you're gonna find anything other than new is always better. I mean, it's in... think about your email, or think about [00:08:00] Netflix and HBO. New is always better. So that's the, the big lie.

[00:08:04] And to be clear, I know we'll, we'll probably come back to this idea later, but that doesn't mean that new is always worse. But we've been trained to believe that new is always better. And, and you can apply this story about the artist. I'm not a painter, but you can apply this to any hobby, any passion that you have.

[00:08:27] My wife is a big runner. She runs marathons. And if you wanted to get into running, there's all kinds of new stuff that you could buy. They've got the carbon-plated shoes now, and there's all kinds of special sunglasses and sportswear and, you know, seemingly infinite number of new things. But at the end of the day, if you wanna become a runner, you have to run.

[00:08:50] You have to wanna be motivated to run. And so you can't buy motivation. You can't buy passion. You can use a lot of those things to help [00:09:00] maximize that passion. And so that's, that's what this artist was experiencing, is being drawn away from what really matters in life and, and to her, which was painting, by all of this new stuff around her

[00:09:14] When Does Upgrading Stop Feeling Like a Win?

[00:09:14] Casey Golden: So I'm sure you've waited in line for an iPhone yourself, right? You're not, You like new things, too.

[00:09:21] Eric Athas: I do

[00:09:24] Casey Golden: When did "new" stop feeling like an upgrade and start feeling like a cost?

[00:09:30] Eric Athas: Well, I would- I'll take it a, one step further, which is that not only have I liked new things, but I used to consider myself to be an early adopter. I would impulsively buy new stuff, download new things, tinker with new technology. And I think that's one of the reasons why I've shifted my perspective, is because I was so into new that I personally became kind of burned out by it.

[00:09:55] And for me, it was first [00:10:00] having kids and being exposed to... Any parent knows this, this, this e- economy, this parent-raising economy where there's all of these new gadgets and strollers and carriers and apps, stuff that I didn't even know existed.

[00:10:16] Ricardo Belmar: Right

[00:10:16] Eric Athas: now I'm like, "I, I want all this stuff." And then, of course, my kids themselves became targets of new stuff themselves, and we live in New York City, and there's not a lot of space in New York City.

[00:10:29] So the pandemic was really the big turning point for me, 'cause now we're trapped in our apartment, and the marketplace is being flooded with all kinds of new products. 'Cause what else are we gonna do? We're bored. Let's buy some stuff and download some technology and use it.

[00:10:44] Casey Golden: Oh my God, I redid like my whole apartment 'cause

[00:10:47] Eric Athas: Right?

[00:10:48] Casey Golden: spent this much time

[00:10:49] Eric Athas: What else are you gonna do?

[00:10:51] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah

[00:10:53] Eric Athas: So I bought up a whole bunch of stuff, and that was the point where I looked around and I'm like, "Hmm." I had [00:11:00] this assumption that all of these new things were s- were solving my problems, but actually many of them are creating additional problems, whether it's financial cost or clutter or just distraction.

[00:11:14] And that was the point where I became very interested in this concept of novelty at the core of a lot of the things I actually didn't wanna be spending my time or money on, and wanna kind of understand that a little bit more and understand like, okay, what is my relationship with the new? Why do I want all this stuff?

[00:11:31] And even though I know I don't want some of these things, why do I keep saying yes to them? Why do I keep consuming them? So that was the shift that I experienced

[00:11:40] Ricardo Belmar: Right

[00:11:41] Casey Golden: It's very, very nice. had a life as like a personal shopper back in the day and I would constantly say, "No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." Because, you know, we don't always need all these new things. but it's very rare to find somebody in retail say no to a [00:12:00] customer. Like, "Don't buy this.

[00:12:01] Ricardo Belmar: right.

[00:12:02] Casey Golden: cut off.

[00:12:03] Ricardo Belmar: Right.

[00:12:04] Casey Golden: You hit the budget. You're gonna have to tell me

[00:12:07] Eric Athas: It's not a good, that's not a good strategy in retail?

[00:12:10] Casey Golden: It, it's a great strategy, but

[00:12:12] Ricardo Belmar: but and you, you mentioned another one a minute ago when

[00:12:14] Casey Golden: it's not often that somebody's gonna do that

[00:12:17] Ricardo Belmar: You, you used the, brought up the term earlier, an early adopter, which we hear, like, all the time in any kind of tech device, right? That everyone should be striving to be an early adopter is what we, the message we keep hearing. But I'm, I'm kinda curious, like, where, where you came to on, on that one, because that to me is one of those where, like, that's the whole pitch. Every time there's a new version of something is, "Well, you wanna be an early adopter."

[00:12:40] Eric Athas: Yeah, because new is always better, and you want to be using the newest, and you want to be using it right away. That's the premise. And, and the problem is, is there's so many new things. I write about in the book how there are, and, and you all know this better [00:13:00] than I do, hundreds of millions of products that you could buy, a seemingly infinite amount of content to consume.

[00:13:07] So, so if you're an early adopter and you're saying, "You know what? I'm gonna be consuming new things and acquiring new things constantly," then that's all you're gonna be doing because there's so much of it. And so part of that shift for me, I think, was that there was a moment in my life where being an early adopter and being on, you know, quote-unquote, the cutting edge, whatever that is, it was actually joyful because the pace was a little bit slower, and you could feel like you could go deep into some kind of tool or something like that, or some kind of product, and it would be enjoyable 'cause you wouldn't feel like you're just trying to keep up

[00:13:41] Casey Golden: Right. Well, I don't like setting up a new phone. I think it's a terrible experience.

[00:13:48] Ricardo Belmar: That's true too

[00:13:49] The Beetle Trap: Why Our Brains Are Wired for Novelty

[00:13:49] Casey Golden: There's a story in chapter two about, which I thought this was absolutely hilarious, about male jewel be- beetles in Western Australia that started [00:14:00] mating with discarded beer bottles because the bottles were bigger and shinier than the actual female beetles. and the species nearly collapsed. you call it an evolutional trap, and you say we're currently in one. Single in New York, I concur. But, let's stick to the, the purchasing side of things. us through the damage. what's this newness actually taking from people?

[00:14:28] Eric Athas: Sure. Well, the term evolutionary trap is one that scientists have used to describe all kinds of situations where you have something that had been an advantage for the entire existence of, of the creature, of the species, whatever it is, and now some kind of change in the environment has turned that advantage into a disadvantage.

[00:14:53] And that's what happened with these beetles. That's what happens when turtles start walking not toward [00:15:00] moonlight, but streetlights. And so... And by the way, another good analogy that I think people will find relatable is sugar. We, our ancient ancestors would be able to tell the calorie count of some kind of food, and they needed a lot of calories to be able to hunt and everything.

[00:15:20] They could tell the calorie count by tasting it, and, and the sweetness of the sugar was an indicator that it had calories. And that was very useful. Well, now, of course, sugar's everywhere, and so it's, it's less useful. But

[00:15:31] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:15:31] Eric Athas: yeah, and so are calories. Exactly. So, but going back to new things, new products, new information, you can imagine those same ancient ancestors and how important it was for them to pay attention to new information around them to stay safe or to go find new places to hunt or new food to eat, and later explore new land and eventually innovate, and all of the reasons we [00:16:00]are here today because of all of these new inventions and innovations.

[00:16:04] So, so our... Humans are fundamentally drawn to the new, and, and, and in fact, there's been research that's been done that shows when we encounter something new, the brain releases dopamine, and that drives us, that motivates us to go explore it. So for most of our existence, that has been useful. But like sugar, today, new things are everywhere, and just like sugar, we can overconsume them.

[00:16:32] We can spend way too much money on them. We can fill our homes with clutter because our brains are programmed to go seek out the new things and ignore the old things, and new things are abundant and extremely easy to access.

[00:16:48] Casey Golden: I feel like, you know, the,

[00:16:50] How Retailers Engineer You Into Buying More

[00:16:50] Casey Golden: the industry also is designing around new so that everything's built to be replaced [00:17:00] and it's not gonna last, so you're gonna have to do new. Like, it's being completely designed into the manufacturing process, the purchasing process, the can't tell you how many times I've seen a picture of something or seen something somebody had, that they just got it, and I went to go get it, and it's already gone. And I'm, like, always freaking late I'm not, like, paying attention to the, the noise, right? And I'm like, "You could have probably sold a whole bunch more of those if you would've just let it stick around a little bit longer," because it all got snatched up by that newness. And there's like a lot of, there's a lot of money that's lost in turning. You know? Like to come up with a new product, to come up with new marketing campaigns, to all that stuff, where you could've just let it ride an extra month, an extra two months, and how much money could you have saved? How many, how much more data points would you have [00:18:00] gotten actual real sell-through, or different numbers? but it's almost like quick turn, quick turn, turn and burn, keep going, and get, sell the sa- sell the same thing or something slightly different to the person over and over and over again as fast as you can, as many times as you can during the year.

[00:18:18] Eric Athas: Well, you've just shown a good example of how this book applies to lots of dis- different situations. So far we've been talking more about the individual and, and that's sort of the target audience for this, is you as an individual can, can think about your relationship with novelty. But this comes up everywhere.

[00:18:36] It comes up in the workplace, and certainly in a lot of different industries, including, as you've just described, with retail, and how anyone in any position in any industry can also be over-indexing on new, and maybe sometimes that does work against them as well.

[00:18:56] Casey Golden: So you quote Ricardo on page 41 [00:19:00] about treasure hunt retail. I love me a good treasure hunt. stores that ship in new inventory constantly to keep people hunting. What did that h- did that conversation change for you?

[00:19:15] Eric Athas: I thought this was just a really interesting concept, which, yeah, as you mentioned, Ricardo featured in this book. I'm glad you got the page, too. That's,

[00:19:25] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[00:19:25] Eric Athas: that's very, that's very, very good I thought this was really interesting. So I'm y- y- you all are experts i- in this area. I am a, I am a mere consumer, but, but I find it very interesting.

[00:19:40] Like, as a consumer, I find this stuff very interesting because you can start to see how it works just in daily life when you walk into a store. In this case, if you walk into a HomeGoods or a TJ Maxx, and I found that really powerful because it's just a, it [00:20:00] was a really great example of how new things can potentially eat up our time, our attention, and our money.

[00:20:08] And treasure hunting, which can be fun and, and I'll talk in a second about how you can potentially make it less damaging or, or less harmful or problematic, but it's a great example of something where you could spend so much time. And I interviewed someone in the book who i- in the book I refer to her as Chloe, and Chloe was addicted to shopping, and so she would spend hours every weekend, she'd be going to all of the different stores in her, in her city and just doing exactly that, treasure hunting and bringing all this stuff back that she didn't even have space for, and she went into deep debt.

[00:20:52] So that's an extreme example. But on, you know, a smaller example, you can reali- you can go in and, and end up buying a [00:21:00] few things that you just don't need and spending some money you don't need. Now, another thing, that I think can be very fulfilling or valuable is you can turn some of these experiences that may be problematic.

[00:21:13] So if you're spending way too much time, and you know that for yourself, "I don't wanna be doing this. Why am I spending all this time and money?" You could actually flip that into somewhat of a more meaningful experience if you bring a friend with you. Friends going out and treasure hunting could be kind of a joyful experience, and that starts to balance things out a little bit, where you're turning it into a, a memory with a friend, and maybe the few bucks is worth it, and maybe the, the hour or two is worth it.

[00:21:40] Casey Golden: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:41] Ricardo Belmar: That's an interesting way to look at it, and I think it's one of those things where we always thought and, and some retailers have kind of i-in a sense, right, analyzed this to death to to figure out what's gonna keep encouraging you, 'cause the whole, the whole game is to get you to come back, right? And to come back and come back again [00:22:00] and again and again to get something else, 'cause that's how, how it's a win for the business. Now and so one of the things I found in, in the book that I think is maybe one of the most useful ideas or for me is

[00:22:10] The Vanishing Gap Between Wanting and Buying

[00:22:19] Ricardo Belmar: what, what you call the new thing gap. and that was, I, I guess the, the time and distance between encountering something new and being able to get it. And I, I hadn't thought about this before, but I think you make a really good point here because if we go back, you know, like 1995, that gap was a couple days wide.

[00:22:28] you know, it, it took a half hour drive to a Foot Locker to get new pair of shoes or, or, or whatever it was. You know, it was a day afternoon trip to the mall, right? But today it's a thumb swipe, and, and you're done, right? And you, you kinda make the argument that as we, we are into this agentic shopping space, which is what everybody in retail is talking about this year, for better or worse, and that that's kinda like the last step because now...

[00:22:53] And you use the phrase no-click ordering because it's like even no effort at all now. and at the end of the day, I guess a, a lot of the [00:23:00] folks who are listening to our show are the people who are building that. They're building it for us so that we can do that. So if we're gonna be straight with them, you know, what, what is... do you think is the actual takeaway for the industry wh-when it's closing this gap completely?

[00:23:13] Eric Athas: Yeah. Well, I, I, I'm, I'm honored to, to address a lot of the people that, that built these systems. I mean, look, I, I find... In the book, I write about how convenience and that new thing gap going down in time is, or in space is, is, is not universally a bad thing. And I'm not saying that we should go back in time, we should get rid of all of our technology and, and go back to cash only.

[00:23:44] It, th- that, that, that's not the point that I'm trying to make. There have been a lot of advancements that have made our lives clearly better and easier, and we can move around easier. And when... Google [00:24:00] Maps is a great example And I'm, m- th- the ability to make payments with our phones, k- I think a lot of people would agree that has saved some time and effort that we don't necessarily need back

[00:24:20] Ricardo Belmar: Right. Right

[00:24:21] Eric Athas: So the thing that has been, I guess, taken away universally is that time to think, and that space to think and make good decisions about you as an individual.

[00:24:34] And, and sometimes that is useful, but many times not having that time to think is not necessarily useful for the individual. there's this, there's this, sort of system around persuasion, this research that was developed by someone, named Richard Petty, and he... This is way-- decades and decades ago.

[00:24:59] And what [00:25:00] he found is basically there is, there is persuasion that can happen after someone has thought deeply about something, and so you have to give them a lot of information about the product and help them understand the pros and the cons and, and, and why this might be good for you or why this other one might be good to-- sort of being much more contemplative about our choices.

[00:25:22] And then there's persuasion that happens in an instant, and you're not thinking at all about it, and it's much easier to persuade people when they're not thinking. And so what we have is a lot of people making choices that are being persuaded to consume something, to buy something, to download something or subscribe to it, without necessarily having that thought process of, "Can I afford this?

[00:25:45] Is this right for me? Is this the right choice?" And what happens when you make choices that are ultimately wrong for someone is they end up with a product that, that's not for them, that they don't like, that doesn't bring them joy, it doesn't bring them happiness. And I don't think [00:26:00] most businesses want that, and I don't think that these systems are nefarious or meant to accomplish that.

[00:26:06] But because everything is built that way today and it's so easy to access it, we all kind of s- it's so easy to fall into that trap, even though no one really, like, necessarily, wants that to happen every time.

[00:26:19] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you, if you

[00:26:22] Casey Golden: A lot of systems are

[00:26:23] Ricardo Belmar: to, to where we're headed with this agentic commerce and there's an agent doing the buying for you, I mean, who do you think it's really optimizing for? Is it optimizing for the shopper or for the retailer?

[00:26:35] Eric Athas: That's the great question. I don't know. That's, I think the, I think, I don't know, and I think that's the problem

[00:26:41] Casey Golden: I think that's a question. Can it be optimizing for itself? For it to be successful,

[00:26:46] Ricardo Belmar: Right

[00:26:47] Casey Golden: Does it have to do work to provide value? So it has to go buy stuff or go do things

[00:26:53] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:54] Casey Golden: that isn't benefiting the retailer or

[00:26:56] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:26:57] Casey Golden: the consumer even

[00:26:58] Ricardo Belmar: for the, the tech company that [00:27:00] made the agent in

[00:27:02] Eric Athas: You're right. Exactly. I mean, look, anyone

[00:27:04] Ricardo Belmar: maybe

[00:27:04] Casey Golden: to wonder, right? Like

[00:27:07] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[00:27:08] Eric Athas: Anyone who has used an AI chatbot has had this experience where it sometimes will tell you what you think you want to know, but sometimes it doesn't. And so if you put that type of decision-making into, and you give it purchasing power, I j- I, I just don't know. And that's...

[00:27:26] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[00:27:26] Eric Athas: it removes, to your earlier point, Ricardo, it removes the decision-making process, the thinking completely out of the equation,

[00:27:34] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[00:27:36] Eric Athas: and basically shuts down that new thing gap.

[00:27:41] And I think, at least for me personally, if I were to use something like that, I'd probably wind up with a lot of new things that I don't necessarily need or want

[00:27:53] Casey Golden: Yeah, your new hobby instead of shopping would then be returning

[00:27:57] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah,

[00:27:58] Eric Athas: Right.

[00:27:59] Ricardo Belmar: That's

[00:27:59] Eric Athas: [00:28:00] Well, there are agentic, return systems

[00:28:02] Casey Golden: and motivation to deal with it, feel like that's kind of like the unintended per- I know that person who over-shopped, never took tags off, has a room full of boxes and bags of product that have never been touched because it was the having and not necessarily the getting, right?

[00:28:22] It's feeding this, like, emotional moment. And, you know, people are more vulnerable to the messaging and the, the narrative than, than others. But it didn't make that person, like, feel good about those brands that they let her do this because it was conscious decision, right? And so then you, those brand names, when you see that you're ashamed that you may have done all this, it starts having a negative brand, like it starts impacting brand equity, because now that's such a negative moment is, is being amplified. and I think when we [00:29:00] take out, when you have a, a, this AI agent shopping on your behalf without you. People barely left the house in the first place, you know? some of it was to go to a store or go to the mall or do some of these things that were semi-entertainment, semi-functional. but I'm not, I'm not so sure that it adds value. What is that convenience? And I think just kinda circling back on convenience itself, you quote Amanda Mull writing that when something is made convenient, it's because the convenience matters, like benefits the company. And Evan Williams describes the formula for a billion-dollar internet business is taking out the steps so people don't have to think. then you spend a whole chapter arguing for the opposite, which you call friction, useful friction. I completely believe in purposeful friction in shopping. Big proponent. So that's like a [00:30:00] genuinely uncomfortable idea for most people whose job has been promoting frictionless. It, but it's, it's something we've talked about before here and there. w- where does that friction belong and what is that value of how do you know when it's convenient versus, God, almost predatory? If I might be so bold to say that.

[00:30:27] Eric Athas: Well, one thing to mention is that in the book, I'm not necessarily calling for ch- universal changes on, in how we design our products. There's a lot of experts out there and a lot of people that do that. But I do suggest that an individual, any individual, should organize their own life to make sure friction is in the right place.

[00:30:54] And when friction's in the right place, that's what I call useful friction. So I don't [00:31:00]personally want seamless access to social media. I don't personally want a frictionless experience around buying new stuff. And by the way, I don't really want my kids to have frictionless experiences around buying new stuff,

[00:31:15] Casey Golden: It needs

[00:31:15] Eric Athas: especially that one.

[00:31:17] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. At

[00:31:18] Eric Athas: I think

[00:31:19] Ricardo Belmar: think especially that one.

[00:31:21] Eric Athas: Oh, yeah. I... Well,

[00:31:22] Ricardo Belmar: daughter would buy

[00:31:23] Eric Athas: e- exactly. Exactly.

[00:31:25] Ricardo Belmar: it

[00:31:26] Eric Athas: Exactly. So, but I do want seamless experiences around other things. I do want seamless access to a Google Doc that I need to edit for work.

[00:31:38] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm.

[00:31:38] Eric Athas: I don't wanna have to take a whole bunch of steps to get there. And so useful friction is about injecting it into the spaces where you don't want speed and you don't want seamlessness.

[00:31:51] And so how do you determine that? Well, it's an surprisingly simple [00:32:00] answer, which is you have to do a little bit of an audit of your life, and look at where all of the new stuff is coming in, and identify the access points to those new things that you want less of, or at least you want more deliberation around.

[00:32:16] And for some people, that might be their Amazon app. It's probably a common one. For other people, it might be social media. For me, it was social media, because social media is an endless feed of novelty. It is pulling on our novelty brains, and I just personally can't resist it if it's, if it's so easily accessible.

[00:32:38] So useful friction is not necessarily getting rid of these things entirely. You can certainly do that, but it's just adding a few extra steps in the process. So that may be deleting the app and only using it on your desktop or your laptop, so you at least have to go open it, and you gotta... And it takes a few...

[00:32:56] You're not bringing the shopping experience with you wherever you go. [00:33:00] Or deleting your credit card information out. Taking out some of those frictionless features and forcing yourself to take a few extra steps into places where you personally have decided, "I would rather have a little bit more thinking around this."

[00:33:15] And if you can do that, it takes a little bit of time on the front end, but if you can do that, then you're gonna save yourself some time and money and, and potentially clutter and, and effort and a lot of other things, pain in, in the future by setting some of that up, you know, upfront

[00:33:34] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, yeah. Now in chapter six, I think it is, you,

[00:33:38] The Magic Pill Effect: Why AI Tells You What You Want to Hear

[00:33:40] Ricardo Belmar: you talk about the magic pill effect, which, is sort of our preference for the miracle cure. and it, it runs from a concept, I think from psychology called motivated reasoning, wh- which is, takes the form when people arrive at the conclusions they wanted to arrive at through, through some means.

[00:33:54] I'm thinking a lot about like typical conversation with an AI chatbot, where they're so eager to please, and you just get to the [00:34:00] conclusion that you probably was the one you wanted originally. and then we've got things like AI washing that a lot of companies are doing. We have dark patterns on, what I think research is, there's 11% of shopping sites to sort of coerce you into certain, methods of, of shopping. you know, there's open marketplaces for fake reviews on Facebook. you know, and now you take all these things and you come back to what we were talking about earlier and add to that an AI shopping assistant on top of all of it.

[00:34:26] If the model tells me the product I already wanted is the right one, and a different model would've told me something completely different, what have we really built?

[00:34:33] Have we just built the perfect motivated reasoning machine?

[00:34:36] Eric Athas: Bingo. We've just supercharged the magic pill effect because like you said, humans are wired to believe things that reinforce our deepest intentions, even if they're not necessarily what's best for us. The other effect of the magic, or the other sort of [00:35:00] function of the magic pill effect I should say, is that we like the shortest distance between point A and point B, which makes total sense, right?

[00:35:08] We want the express train. We want the nonstop flights. But it also means that we want the cheat code to life's greatest challenges. We wanna get fit in 30 days, not three months. We want to be able to use a red light therapy machine or a skincare product or some kind of supplement that's going to fix everything for us without us having to put in all the effort to, to get there ourselves.

[00:35:39] And those are all examples of the magic pill effect But there really aren't... Th- there rarely are cheat codes to life's biggest problems, and if we were to, to build the technology that you're describing or use the technology that you're describing, 'cause it's already built, right? It's already being developed,[00:36:00]

[00:36:00] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[00:36:01] Eric Athas: then you're absolutely right.

[00:36:03] I- i- it, it's... We're gonna supercharge this effect, and it's a really strange situation because we'll have people who are making choices that they think are the right choices for themselves, but in fact, they may not be. There is some research that I reference in the book about choice, and about how people actually don't know what they want.

[00:36:31] They think they do, but they don't necessarily make choices that are based on their own informed preferences. And the study that, that, that I referenced was kind of a fun one where they brought participants into a room and they, they, they showed them various pictures of women, and they had them rank what they felt were th- was the attractiveness of each woman.

[00:36:59] [00:37:00] And, and then they had them choose and reject different women for the ones that they wanted to keep. Well, so they had a pile of sort of preferred women, and then they had a pile of rejected. Then they played this little trick on these volunteers, and they put some of the rejected women back into the accepted piles.

[00:37:23] And they said, "We're gonna do the exercise again," but they didn't tell the participants this. And of course, when people saw the women that they had rejected earlier, they were like, "Oh yeah, I rate this person very high." So they had changed their mind without even realizing they had changed their mind, was kind of the point of this study.

[00:37:39] And you can imagine how this might play out in daily life of consuming things and seeing a shiny new product, which by the way, we're programmed to go explore and go seek out, and think that we want it, and now we have some agent that's telling us we want it, and we're telling... It's telling us that it's the [00:38:00] preferred option for us and it matches our preference.

[00:38:02] And I think that most people in that situation are probably gonna say yes, and they're gonna buy it, and, and, and, and not have to even think two seconds about it.

[00:38:12] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I guess in some way it kind of explains why AI chatbots tend to, us what we want to hear, right? And sort of confirm when we ask it to tell us which one's best. If we give it any kind-- Most of them, I find, if we give it too much leading about one versus another, it ultimately comes back and tells you the one you were leaning towards was the right one, because it just wants to please and...

[00:38:31] Casey Golden: which one's worse,

[00:38:32] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Oh, that's a good idea, yeah.

[00:38:34] Eric Athas: That's a good idea

[00:38:34] Casey Golden: both of them.

[00:38:36] Eric Athas: Good

[00:38:38] Ricardo Belmar: But I figure all of that is because if it works that way and answers us in that manner, I think based on what I'm hearing you say, Eric, it probably means that it's by design because that's gonna keep us coming back to the tool and ask it again and again and again for the next time, and it gets us used to using

[00:38:53] Eric Athas: You know, I don't know if it's by design, but it certainly has that effect

[00:38:58] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah

[00:38:59] Casey Golden: [00:39:00] You don't have to go on the record saying it's by design. I will. It's by design.

[00:39:05] Eric Athas: You're the experts here. I'm not an expert, expert on agentic shopping. You tell me

[00:39:10] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:39:11] Casey Golden: The amount of consumer behavior that's built into every single process and strategy is sometimes shameful

[00:39:19] Eric Athas: Casey, I should have interviewed you to, for the book as well

[00:39:24] Casey Golden: Oh, we... I would love to geek out with you. I find it very interesting why people do the things that they do and why they buy the things that they buy.

[00:39:34] Eric Athas: Well, I, I, the, and th- and that's... I do too, and that's one of the positive effects learning all of this has been on my life, which is I actually think it's kind of fun to go out into the world and see, "Hmm, oh, I see how they're trying to influence my choice.

[00:39:51] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[00:39:52] Eric Athas: see how they're trying to rush me into this purchase or try to nudge me to click download."

[00:39:59] I, I, I [00:40:00] find that to be very interesting and, and not only interesting, but of course, useful to my own decisions, because then I can get ahead of it, and I can start to be a little bit more informed.

[00:40:08] Casey Golden: Yeah, I think it's, you have to... If you understand some of it you can also use it for good, which is to bring more joy or to bring more value or, like a lot of the things that you said that it takes away from you can also it for the things that it gives back. It's, and still do good business, in my opinion. it's just all about having, double-clicking on it, geeking out a little bit, talking to people like yourselves, looking at the business, looking at your own life. because as long as it works on consumers, it will continue to work for brands, or for companies. So I wanna just stop and reset something because we've spent a lot of time on what's broken, and I think people [00:41:00] could get the wrong idea about your book. on page 17 of the introduction,

[00:41:04] The Iron Man Method: Finding Your Anchor in a World of New

[00:41:09] Casey Golden: you write plainly that, "The goal is not to say no to all new things." and you're framing for how to decide is a, a value exercise that you call the Iron Man method. So Tony Stark's arc reactor, the thing under the suit that never changes even as the suit gets upgraded in every movie, it's the anchor. So what is your book actually asking people to do?

[00:41:31] Eric Athas: Iron Man effect. Yeah, talk about geeking out. Here we go, right?

[00:41:35] Ricardo Belmar: I know. Yeah, I'm all into that

[00:41:36] Eric Athas: I did wanna say clearly in the book, and, and, and I do try to make it clear throughout that, that no, saying no to new things does not mean saying no to all new things. The book's title is really meant to stop you in your tracks because it's so opposite of what we're used to. Saying no to new, but new is always better.

[00:41:58] There are very few [00:42:00] places you can find where, where you're gonna hold up new as, or something old as the optimal choice. It, it... I mean, you... Yes. But even Rolex, I mean, is it advertised as old? It's still shiny, right? So anyways, there, there are lots of more places where, right, where you're gonna find new being...

[00:42:22] And so we, with the book's title, it's meant to stop you in your tracks and just get you to think. And the idea behind The Iron Man Effect is that the, I'm sorry, the Iron Man method, is that Iron Man is the epitome of newness. With each new movie, he's got a shiny, shinier and exterior with new gizmos and laser beams and new gadgets that he uses.

[00:42:56] But the arc reactor, the thing that light in the middle of his chest, [00:43:00] is always there, and it's always keeping him alive. It's always powering him. And so I use that as a way for us to think about our own values. What do you... What really matters to you in life? And when you're going to acquire something new or consume something new, just asking yourself, "Does it conflict with what matters to me or not?"

[00:43:19] And this is sort of an oversimplified answer to your question, which is just a couple of really simple steps. Number one, figure out what matters to you. Figure out what, what you value. Number two, avoid things that conflict with that. And then number three, embrace the new things that align with that. And that's, like I said, an oversimplification, but that's kind of the idea of what we're going for here.

[00:43:47] Not to overthink it, but to make informed choices for yourself that are really for yourself, and actually spending a little bit of time understanding, what do I care [00:44:00] about? And not only what my values are, but what are my preferences? What do I like in a product? And having a really strong understanding of that.

[00:44:08] We don't necessarily do that enough as consumers. And so that gets at that idea that we're not trying to get rid of all of our new stuff and avoid new things, but just make better choices about them and be much more intentional and deliberate about them

[00:44:24] Casey Golden: Yes, a new couch sent me in a spiral that I needed a new apartment.

[00:44:30] Eric Athas: Right

[00:44:34] Casey Golden: Because the couch I want doesn't fit in my apartment. So I had to adjust the sofa to not make a stupid decision. A very expensive, stupid decision. But it was a valid decision-making process that lasted months. Do I move or a new sofa?

[00:44:59] Ricardo Belmar: [00:45:00] Another interesting point for me in going through the book in chapter seven, and it is,

[00:45:05] Rediscovering the Familiar: Why Old Things Still Work

[00:45:07] Ricardo Belmar: it's called Rediscover the Familiar, right? And you have, it starts the conversation, I guess, with Tom Hanks, who showed you a 100-year-old typewriter that was still perfectly fine. It worked,

[00:45:13] You know, all it needed was to be cleaned and get a fresh ribbon in it. There was nothing wrong with it.

[00:45:17] It would work exactly as intended. And then you have another interview with, it's Amber Case in the Comtech Institute, who had a great description about smart home devices as being the same as 10 to 20 new roommates who won't stop bothering you at home. You know, lights that beep at 3:00 in the morning, the robot vacuum that texts your wife's phone. You know, had a line I think that you quote in there about if you're making a smart TV and you want it to be really smart, then no one should have to be smart to know how to use it. So I- it's the question, you know, for a room full of people who buy and build retail technology, when's the innovation improving your life?

[00:45:55] When is it just innovation theater for the sake of innovation?

[00:45:58] Eric Athas: Amber [00:46:00] is very good with words and has many one-liners, more than I could include in the book. One of the ways that Amber Case talks about this, and it's really built into this consulting company that she runs, which is called the Comtech Institute, she talks about it as being informed without being burdened.

[00:46:25] And one of the things, one of the concepts underpinning that is making products and using products that work with us, that work with the way that humans operate in the world, that work with the nature, that work with the way that we see things and hear things and touch things, versus things that look and sound futuristic, but to quote Amber Case, "Are just kind of annoying."

[00:46:51] And I can give you a few examples of that. LED lights, bright LED lights. I was at [00:47:00]a... Me and my family went to a, an inn a couple weeks ago, and the LED lights from the TV were so bright that they were almost keeping us up. Here's another one. Disembodied voices, apps that just notify you, that beep with alerts about...

[00:47:22] For me, the, as, you know, as you mentioned, one of my biggest gripes is the robotic vacuum that gets stuck and then alerts you. It actually alerts my wife's phone, and then she texts me 'cause she's not home, and, and then we're having a whole conversation about this vacuum, when it was meant to make our lives simpler, and now it's made it more complicated.

[00:47:43] And everything seems to have an app today. So those are just a few examples. Anything that overcomplicates things. The, the TV is a great example. The car dashboard is a classic one where, and, and Tom Hanks talks about this. H- his feeling is, is he really [00:48:00] just wants to be able to change the volume on the radio and change the air conditioner, but you've got these fancy dashboards that I think a lot of people find challenging to use and to navigate, especially while you're driving and trying to...

[00:48:14] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:48:14] Eric Athas: Yeah

[00:48:15] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, exactly

[00:48:16] Casey Golden: too much, and at nighttime the whole thing is glowing and I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm gonna get a migraine."

[00:48:22] Ricardo Belmar: Right.

[00:48:23] Eric Athas: Right.

[00:48:23] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[00:48:25] Eric Athas: Yeah. So contrast that with a bicycle or a piano or a typewriter. A typewriter is not necessarily practical in 2026, but it's a good example of, as Tom Hanks says, you push the keys, the keys hit a, a hammer hits a ribbon that strikes the ink onto the page. It's all very mechanical, and it's working with your fingers and your mind.

[00:48:49] Other examples, going back to the car, and, and Amber references a few things she really likes, a few innovations she thinks are really, you know, to use her terminology, calm [00:49:00] in the car. One is the back... the, the reverse camera. What do you call it? The camera that sh- shows you where you're backing up. The backup camera.

[00:49:09] That's it.

[00:49:10] Ricardo Belmar: The backup camera. Yeah.

[00:49:11] Eric Athas: You don't have to think when you're using the backup camera. It's m- most of them, I know there are different versions of this, but the ones that I've used is you kick the car into reverse, you can see what's behind you, you go in reverse. Very simple. It's using your eyes, it's using your senses.

[00:49:26] The other one she mentioned is the little alert system when you're about to turn, switch lanes, and there's a car, and it gives a little subtle notification. Those types of features that are keeping you safe, that are not overburdening you, but informing you, those are the types of features that are innovative but aren't complicating or annoying.

[00:49:51] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah, I like that idea, but it's not overburdening you 'cause, just as you were mentioning, like the lane, the, when there's a car in the lane next to you, you know, one of the [00:50:00] ones that my car does that annoys me to no end, that it comes, you know, the car company puts it in a package with all those same features. It's a, it's-- The intention I think was good, but it's meant to keep you in your lane. So it's supposed to be like if you wander out of a lane, it's supposed to gently nudge you back in, and I find that, in my car, to be the most annoying thing imaginable because it, it never agrees with what I think is the lane. So, and when it nudges,

[00:50:25] Casey Golden: a

[00:50:25] Ricardo Belmar: as I'm the one driving, it feels like it's nudging me in the wrong direction. Like it's nudging me out of the lane, not into it.

[00:50:32] Casey Golden: Oh, that's interesting. I could not handle something trying to take control,

[00:50:35] Ricardo Belmar: So I turned that one off.

[00:50:36] Casey Golden: I can't use the backup camera. I have to turn-- I have to turn it off, or I put, a sweater over it because, I've only done it, twice, and I'm like, "I know how to back up way." Don't

[00:50:49] Eric Athas: Oh, there you go

[00:50:50] Casey Golden: I'm gonna kill somebody. I haven't owned a car in, 16 years that I've lived in New York. I haven't had a car

[00:50:56] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:50:57] Casey Golden: I'm sure most of the people building these [00:51:00] dashboards, I think Amber mentioned, they're designing the dashboards and the analytics. They don't drive either. I think that's, one of those things that retail has the same problem. Most people building retail tech or shopping tech have never worked in retail. They worked in MarTech, they worked in AdTech, which is why we have ads on refrigerator screens or in our dashboards in the car coming, for some fast food restaurant that you just drove by. or on Waze, right?

[00:51:34] Because, we don't have a lot of retail people building retail tech. but I think it's super interesting. I think these conversations, I think we need to have them much more now than later to just put ourselves into check on what we believe in and what matters to us before AI hits the next stage [00:52:00] general. we have to

[00:52:02] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[00:52:03] Casey Golden: autopilot moment off and kinda just do a check. Make sure we know who we are, what we believe in, what we value, what we want, what we don't want. And I think your book is really great for opening up that conversation and doing some of those, exercises and, education on some of the things that maybe the average, know, consumer wasn't aware of that, "Oh, this is a thing."

[00:52:28] Eric Athas: I do think, Casey, that you're onto something there. For this particular moment we're in, I think we're in a moment where people are interrogating their relationship with the technology they use, the things they buy, maybe more so than ever. I think, and this is just a theory, that the explosion of AI has people thinking about technology in ways that maybe they hadn't as much as before.

[00:52:57] And so [00:53:00] maybe it creates an opportunity for business to, to capture that and to meet people where they are around this conversation.

[00:53:07]

[00:53:07] Casey Golden: I'm down for a lot more 1995, but

[00:53:11] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. It, it reminds me of something I, I was reading, a few weeks back about how you look at, used car sales, and there's, like, a surge in popularity of used cars from, roughly about 10 years ago because apparently that's when, like, there was the, the last major technology shift to things like you were have in the book about the dashboard styles that, that before car companies started doing that, and cars were essentially dumber devices, that people are wanting to buy that instead of the newer ones because they're fed up with all these new things that are in the car trying to take over how you do everything

[00:53:44] Eric Athas: Interesting. That's fascinating

[00:53:46] Casey Golden: There's research in chapter seven from Ed O'Brien at Chicago Booth that I found completely surprising. People consistently predict they'll [00:54:00] hate repeating an experience. Rewatching the movie, going back through the museum, and then when they actually do it, they enjoy it almost as much as the first time. We're wrong about the familiar in a predictable direction. Now, Ricardo told you on your first call, I read the notes, about brands like Patagonia that build for long-term quality instead of turning through low-quality goods, and you said that this kind of stuck with you. I've spent most of my career on the luxury side, so everything's meant to stay, be handed down

[00:54:37] This is so not about, function. There's a whole value system in place. so put this together is there is a business on the other side of this. What does a, a brand look like that's built on rediscovery instead of replacement? And do you think that this is something that- as the pendulum swings [00:55:00]Like, from like all of this AI, we'll have this pendulum swing and there's gonna be new stuff, or there's also rediscovering

[00:55:09] Eric Athas: Well, one place to start is to study people and observe people who are leaning into some of these older products and devices. And when you see someone with an old familiar thing, you do observe this sense of joy and attachment and utility. And I think maybe that's where the answer may be laying to your question.

[00:55:36] I spoke to an anthropologist named Grant McCracken, and he studies culture, the culture of possessions, and how our relationship with possessions carries great meaning. The clothes we wear sends a signal out to the world around us, and signals potentially str- important cultural meanings. He talks about a book on a shelf and how [00:56:00] that book, which was once new, had deep meaning in our lives.

[00:56:04] It shaped our opinions and our identity. And And so when you think about how products, how possessions can have meaning, can play a really important role, I think that's maybe the place to start and to actually see, well, why do people who, who do like to rediscover things, why do they do that? What are they, what are they searching for?

[00:56:28] And it's very similar to Amber's framework, which is that why do we find familiar things so calm? And one answer is that they work with us, not against us. One answer is that they're simple. It's very easy to learn how to use a typewriter, for instance. It's somewhat self-explanatory. There's, there's complexities to it in how you set, set it up and everything, but once you learn it, like a bike, once you learn it, there's no, there's no system updates, right?

[00:56:59] It's not gonna [00:57:00] crash.

[00:57:00] Ricardo Belmar: Right.

[00:57:01] Eric Athas: the, if the Wi-Fi goes down, the bike's not gonna suddenly stop. And so that's a bit of a squishy answer to your question, Casey, but I think that, that, that seeing how people experience these old familiar products, I think, I think carries great meaning with it. And, and why do people care about it?

[00:57:23] I was recently talking to someone who has an old camera, and it uses film, and he likes this camera because it doesn't instantly show him the photo that he shot. It doesn't have an infinite amount of space. It reminds him of his grandfather. So all of these features that some of them at least run counter to what we think people want in products, speed, storage space, maybe actually working against the things, some of the things that people want

[00:57:57] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I can see that. [00:58:00] I, I guess the other thing it makes me think of is there,

[00:58:03] The Diderot Effect: How One New Purchase Ruins Everything Else

[00:58:04] Ricardo Belmar: there's like another side to this, equation or the transaction maybe if we're putting it in retail terms, which I think you call it, talk in the book about making peace with new. is sort of admitting that, you do all these checks, right?

[00:58:16] We try to get better at this. We're all gonna fail at some point, and we're gonna, you know, fail to resist the temptation, right? And we're gonna buy the new thing. and it may end up shoved in a closet somewhere because at the end of the day, we, we, we were attracted to it, we liked it, but we didn't really need it, so it just gets put away and it's just there. And you talk about some different, mechanisms, I guess, in the book about how, you know, how you get pulled in. You know, where, where the i- the thing that you got, like if it was a guitar, it was never really just a guitar. It meant something else, and maybe that's why you got it. it's kind of like Casey talked before about how, you know, getting the couch, the new couch was gonna lead to wanting a new apartment because it it didn't fit in the current one, and that was gonna make everything wrong.

[00:58:58] And I think you have an [00:59:00] example about buying a new desk that made everything around it look like it was way too old and, and just awful, and it made you want to replace everything. and in a way, like, you know, That's the very core of, of retail because I think retail really plays into this. so in a sense, I mean, does it, do you kind of come away thinking that, well, as an industry, we, we sort of, we owe people on the failure side of this transaction because we've caused everyone to go down this failure trap?

[00:59:26] Eric Athas: And by the way, the... What you've described is, is, was coined as the Diderot effect, of you buy one product and suddenly you feel like it makes everything look old and you have to upgrade everything else. A-

[00:59:38] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:59:39] Eric Athas: that was, that term was actually coined by Grant McCracken, who I mentioned earlier.

[00:59:44] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:44] Eric Athas: Does the industry owe consumers anything?

[00:59:48] I don't necessarily know that, that we are owed anything when we, when we make a purchase or acquire something that ends up being the wrong choice and was sort of, we were, you know, [01:00:00] manipulated into, to buying it, whatever it might be. But I think that there are certain things that I think people... When I say people, I really just mean myself, right?

[01:00:10] 'Cause I'm, I'm... You're all the, you're the expert, so you probably have all the data on this. But I know making returns really easy, the ability to unsubscribe from something really quickly and seamlessly, it's those frictionless features, but in reverse. I know I've appreciated that, and when I've experienced that, I've thought, "Oh, well, I really appreciate that they've made this so easy."

[01:00:36] And I recently bought a mug. I've had, I've had the re- this really hard time finding this certain mug for my wife that I wanna get her for her birthday, and I found it on eBay, and it came and it was all broken. It, it was not any... It, th- it wasn't the seller's, They tried their best. It was wrapped in a lot of bubble tape, but [01:01:00] it was broken.

[01:01:00] Anyways, I submitted it for a return, and not only did I get the money, m- my money back, but the seller wrote this really nice note, "I'm so sorry this happened. I know this didn't work out. Don't send the mug back. It's broken." And it was... And, and I just thought, "Wow, this is a great experience." And it was a great experience around something that was cracked.

[01:01:23] Like, w- so there is a, a sentiment there around when we make the wrong choices and we make the wrong decisions, what is that experience like?

[01:01:33] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[01:01:34] Eric Athas: And I think that we are in this moment, as I said earlier, where we are thinking more about our relationship with stuff and technology. And I think given that, people who are thinking that way may, may appreciate some ways in which the products we use, the technology we use are playing into that and helping us make [01:02:00] good choices.

[01:02:00] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It, it kind of makes me think of a couple things that come into my mind. So I have, like, in my career, an, an example m- many years back with a retailer I worked with who, was... This is a UK retailer, and they, you know, a big part of their sales was selling mobile devices, right, to consumers, and a big part of the job of each associate in the store was helping you as the customer figure out, "Well, which one do I buy," right?

[01:02:22] "Which is the right one?" And they had done a study that found that, there was a huge amount of buyer's remorse no matter what consumers picked. Like, that within those first two weeks after they left the store, there was a huge percentage of people who wanted to come back and return it, exchange it for something else, because they were convinced they picked the wrong thing. So decided that, you know, maybe the way they could solve this problem and kind of eliminate these returns, because they recognized, right, that's a bad experience for the consumer, it's bad for the business, bad for the consumer. Nobody wants to have to do that. They say, "Well, what if we came up with a tool that we gave all the store associates," maybe it could run on a tablet or a mobile device they all had, that asked the right set of questions, [01:03:00] right, and walked con- consumers through, you know, 50 questions or whatever the number is of what's gonna help them make a good choice so that they don't feel like they have to come back and have that buyer's remorse.

[01:03:10] And so they, they put this together, and they tried it in some stores, and they found, yeah, it, like, reduced in half the number of people that, that did that because they all walked away feeling much better about the, they made. So it kind of reminds me of that when I hear you describing this

[01:03:24] And it's almost like, you know, a lot of us always talk about the post-purchase experience, that many retailers just ignore, because they think it, it, it done, the relationship's done. They bought something. There, there's not another relationship until you come back to buy something again. But I think you're right.

[01:03:39] Like, your example right there where you mentioned how, you know, they made that whole process easy. You came away feeling like, "Oh, this was really convenient. This was really good." If you did have a reason to go back to them, you, you probably would not remember any negative things about that brand because you had that good experience, so that it mattered, right, that that particular retailer was, [01:04:00] I'll, I'll say smart enough to have engineered that post-experience in a, in a good way, even if it meant they were gonna lose a sale out of it, because it, it at least set things up down the road that you might come back for a future sale.

[01:04:11] The Curb Cut Test: How to Know What's Worth Saying Yes To

[01:04:11] Casey Golden: Eric, you end the book somewhere

[01:04:13] I didn't necessarily expect. conclusion is titled The Right Kind of No, and your argument is that the reward for getting good at saying no is that you finally start noticing the new things worth saying yes to. And you've got the curb test. Does this

[01:04:33] Eric Athas: The curb cut test

[01:04:35] Casey Golden: Curb cut test, yes. What is that? And does it make life better for a wide spectrum of people I'd love if you could just elaborate a little bit on it.

[01:04:47] Eric Athas: Sure. The curb cut test, what is it? Well The book is called Saying No to New, and as we talked earlier about, it's, it's not about saying no to, to every new thing. But I was really... [01:05:00] My eyes were really opened by, in writing this chapter, because I talk a lot and I write a lot about how annoying, how annoying some of these new tools are and the technology.

[01:05:13] We were just talking about the vacuum, and it's all very irritating. And I can sit here and say that I, I work in, in Times Square in New York City, and there's always some new advertisement that I see as I leave the subway. And lately it's been a lot of these meta AI-powered Ray-Ban glasses. And when I see those, I think, "Well, that's not for me.

[01:05:44] I don't necessarily want a computer on my face." Like, I'm trying to personally disconnect from digital experiences. And maybe for other people that's fine, but, like, I'm... And I can talk a lot about that. But actually what [01:06:00] I, what I'm wasn't thinking about at the time is that technology could actually be life-changing for someone who's blind or low vision.

[01:06:09] And that's what the curb cut test is about. What is a curb cut? A curb cut is the little slope that takes you from a sidewalk onto the street and from a street onto a sidewalk. So when you're crossing the street, we don't even think about curb cuts 'cause they're just there. They're, they're actually... This is a law.

[01:06:28] You have to have these little slopes for people who are in wheelchairs. But they're not just useful for people who are disabled. They're useful for parents with strollers, skateboarders, bicyclists, people on scooters, on and on and on. So what is the curb cut test? The curb cut test is you take a look at some kind of innovation and you find that it has benefits universally.

[01:06:59] [01:07:00] And so that's something that I've tried to use to change my perspective a little bit when I see something new that may not be right for me, but maybe it is right for other people, and maybe not just right, but maybe it's actually very life-changing. And thinking about technology, the, the curb cut test is essentially a, a feature of a concept called universal design, where products are designed to benefit everyone.

[01:07:29] Closed captioning is an example of this. Closed captioning is, of course, was originally created for people who couldn't hear the sounds coming from the TV or the movie screen or whatever it is. Now, when you watch an HBO series And they're whispering. You've got closed captioning there, no problem, I know what they're saying.

[01:07:50] Ricardo Belmar: Right.

[01:07:51] Eric Athas: it's a way to check myself and for anyone to check themselves when they're interrogating something new that may not be right for them, but [01:08:00] may actually have uses beyond that person's individual use, and just to keep a little bit of an open mind to especially new technology and innovation that may or may not be useful, but we can consider a lot of different angles.

[01:08:13] Casey Golden: Last one. What's the new thing you said yes to this year, why did it pass your own test?

[01:08:21] Eric Athas: Good question. My answer's probably very boring. I don't buy, I really don't buy a lot of new stuff for myself, and, and I try not to be too extreme on this, because you can be. You- there's an extreme direction you can go that way too, where you're... Everything's broken and you're not fixing it, and you're not replacing it, and you're, you know.

[01:08:44] Anyways, so my, I, I, I do try to avoid that. And, and I'm also maybe cheating a little bit with my answer, you know, because... maybe not. I didn't buy it. So I recently had, I, I work at The New York Times, [01:09:00] and I recently, or I will soon hit my 10-year anniversary. And th- the company gives you a little bit of a gift when you reach these milestones.

[01:09:13] I got this backpack. Now, I, I've never spent more than, I don't know, 25, $30 on a backpack. I always buy the cheapest backpack, and it just, it falls apart. I bought a backpack two months ago and the zipper broke within, within a couple months. But this backpack that they gifted me is a high-quality backpack, and it was one of, I believe it was one of Wirecutter, the, the review website that The New York Times owns, Wirecutter's top picks expensive backpack.

[01:09:51] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[01:09:51] Eric Athas: And I love it, and I wish I had invested in something like this before. And I was so set on, [01:10:00] "Oh, I'm not gonna spend a lot of money on a backpack. I don't need a new backpack. My old, you know, one that's falling apart is fine." And,

[01:10:07] Ricardo Belmar: Right

[01:10:08] Eric Athas: but, but you know what? I'm probably gonna have this backpack for a very long time and, and there's gonna be some sentimental attachment to it.

[01:10:15] So yes, I, I got a very nice backpack. I did not pay any money for it. I just paid 10 years of service at The New York Times.

[01:10:22] Ricardo Belmar: Right.

[01:10:22] Casey Golden: Okay. Amazing. Eric, this has been a fantastic conversation. I've had to bite my tongue several times and hold myself back, otherwise we would be here for a whole entire month. so

[01:10:35] Ricardo Belmar: so true

[01:10:36] Casey Golden: you're giving us all good reasons to rethink why we buy new things, and maybe, just maybe, giving retailers and brand good reason to rethink why they keep trying to push new things to us. I love new things, but I really think we gotta start asking why, and rather than it just, "Does this bring you joy?" Your [01:11:00] methodology and process, much more realistic and valuable when it comes to life.

[01:11:07] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah

[01:11:08] Eric Athas: Thank you

[01:11:10] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree. And it's been a real treat talking through all the different ideas in your book. I can't recommend enough to everyone in the audience that they need to run out and buy it today. absolutely worth the read. It's gonna really make, I, I think make everyone kind of rethink how you look at new things, which I, I think really is, point. and I guess it, and I think if I'm not mistaken, today, today's, September 15th. I think it just became available today, right?

[01:11:31] Eric Athas: That's right. It's out there. You can get it wherever you buy books.

[01:11:35] Ricardo Belmar: yep

[01:11:36] Eric Athas: know, you cho- choose your, your, your book retailer and you can, you can get it today

[01:11:41] Ricardo Belmar: Awesome. Excellent. Excellent

[01:11:42] Eric Athas: Thank you both. I've really enjoyed this conversation

[01:11:45] Ricardo Belmar: So Eric, before we sign off, if, anyone in the audience wants to dig a little deeper with you, maybe reach out to you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

[01:11:51] Eric Athas: Well, I've made this very easy. you may even say frictionless. If you go,[01:12:00]

[01:12:01] if you go to sayingnotonew.com, you'll find my website. You can learn more about me, learn more about the book, and sign up for my newsletter

[01:12:10] Ricardo Belmar: Excellent. Excellent, and we'll have that in the show notes too. Well, Eric, thanks again for joining us today

[01:12:16] Eric Athas: Thanks so much for having me here

[01:12:18] Casey Golden: This episode is a wrap, Ricardo

[01:12:21] Show Close

[01:12:26] Casey Golden: Admit it, you loved it. Drop us a five-star review and rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. And if you're watching us on YouTube, like and subscribe, and drop a comment before you go.

[01:12:40] I'm Casey Golden.

[01:12:41] Ricardo Belmar: Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram, and subscribe to our Substack newsletter for highlights and bonus content. For transcripts and guest info, visit retailrazor.com.

[01:12:52] I'm Ricardo Belmar.

[01:12:53] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us on the Retail Razor Show, part of the Retail Razor Podcast Network.

[01:12:58] Ricardo Belmar: Until next time, stay sharp, [01:13:00] stay human, and stay ahead.

[01:13:01] This is the Retail Razor Show!

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