What is the most precious commodity of the 21st-century consumer society? Technological know-how? Hardly, when infants in arms are learning to boot up before they can even tie their bootie laces. Diamonds? Hardly, when Russian scientists are growing geologically and aesthetically perfect gemstones in the laboratory every day of the week. No, the most valuable resource of the post-modern purchaser is something altogether more old-fashioned. Time. There just isn't enough of it to go round any more. The working day is longer, the traffic heavier. And when the harassed workers of the Western world do finally have a few hours to spare, where are they expected to spend it? That's right. The supermarket.
Supermarkets were invented in order to save people time as well as money. No more hanging about in the corner shop waiting for old Mrs Whatsit from down the road to make up her mind whether she wanted a half-pound of Kimberley or a half-dozen penny buns. Gleaming aisles, steel trolleys, fluorescent lights, brightly-packaged products stacked up in rows as far as the eye could see - the supermarket was to be a brave new world, even if, in the early days, supermarket chains in the US had to pay members of staff to wheel trolleys around and fill them in as flamboyant a fashion as possible, in order to tempt sceptical customers to try it for themselves.
It didn't quite work out as planned. True, supermarkets have insinuated themselves so thoroughly into the everyday routine that it's not at all unusual to find intelligent adults declaring a vehement preference for - or dislike of - one supermarket chain or another, or claiming that they become disoriented and upset if they're forced to shop in an unfamiliar store. Vast out-of-town floor space, cavernous car-parks and an ever-expanding range of goods have, for several decades, been the order of the shopping day. The greengrocer is practically an endangered species, and butchers have resorted to selling everything from cakes to curry sauce in order to survive. No doubt about it: the monster multiple changed the face of shopping. But now the consumer kaleidoscope appears to be taking yet another turn, and supermarkets themselves may have to change, or face extinction. About six months ago it began to dawn on me that the car-park at my local SuperValu was always full. The pub, I thought - or Christmas, maybe. But now it's February and it's still full.
It seems I'm not the only person who prefers to slink into SuperValu rather than face a full-frontal supermarket on my way home from work; SuperValu's sales for 1999 were considerably ahead of the market. The SuperValu ethos is almost exactly the opposite of the large, anonymous supermarket chain, for it consists of a group of loosely-linked independent shops, each owned by the individual retailer and run, in many cases, by families whose connection with the grocery trade in the area goes back several generations. The parent company, Musgrave SuperValu-Centra, sets standards and provides franchise services, but allows - in fact, encourages - each shop to retain its own character. And Celtic Tiger Ireland loves it.
So what's happening to supermarkets? Is the average shopper going off his (or, more likely, her) trolley? Maybe not, but they are unquestionably changing. "There's no such thing as the average consumer any more," says Superquinn's Eamonn Quinn. "In the past the customer knew what they wanted, and it was up to the store to provide it. Now, people want interesting ideas and suggestions, particularly with regard to food. In the past, too, certain products would have been seen as belonging to a health food market, or a junk food market, or a gourmet market, rather than the supermarket - now we're living in a world where people expect a wide range of options to be available to them.
"And that may even mean different options for different times of the day, whether it's the big shop once a week, or the dash and grab on the way home from work. The same customer can be a major customer and a convenience customer and an extremely health-conscious customer all at the same time." But can one shop cater for all those customers? "Ah, well. That's the challenge, isn't it?" "The bottom line is, there are a lot of different consumers out there," says Dr Tony Parker of the Centre for Retail Studies at University College, Dublin. "The general trend towards a more frenetic lifestyle has made day-to-day shopping less interesting than it used to be. It has also meant that certain areas of the market are heavily dominated by certain lifestyle types - young singles with a fair amount of disposable income, for instance, who want to spend as little time as possible in the supermarket and none at all in the kitchen."
Hence the headlong rush towards ready meals, which, until Marks & Spencer came along, used to be called TV dinners and regarded as a somewhat sad substitute for the real thing. "Convenience is a big factor. People want to do things quickly," agrees Jonathan Bradbourn, regional textiles and food manager at Marks & Spencer Ireland. But, he adds, for M&S customers, quality is also a crucial ingredient. "Our customers will always talk about the quality of our foods, and the fact that they're exclusive to us - and people are prepared to pay a bit extra for that."
Exclusivity seems to be the coming thing. Tesco in Dublin's Merrion Centre offers a range of foods including fresh sushi and organic vegetables which are not sold at any of the chain's other 74 Irish outlets. How well they know us, the people who design and stock supermarkets. They do psychological research which tells them to put brightly-coloured fruit and vegetables, or delicious-smelling breads, just inside the entrance - even though it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to figure out that squishy things shouldn't go into the trolley ahead of tins of baked beans and boxes of washing powder.
Thanks to those innocuous-looking little loyalty cards, they know what we buy and when we buy it. They know how to speed us up and slow us down, and they'll stop at nothing to do it. According a recent edition of the magazine Retail Week, one British store recently revamped its in-store cafe according to the principles of feng shui, at the suggestion of the store manager's wife, who was taking an evening class in the subject. Square tables were replaced with round to slow the chi, plants and mirrors were added to signify growth and abundance. There was growth and abundance all right: sales increased by 20 per cent.
The supermarket of the future may not, however, have to worry about how to get us into the store, much less what to do with us when we get there. If current trends in e-commerce continue, more and more of us won't be going anywhere near a supermarket again - ever. "They say there's nothing new in retailing," says Dr Tony Parker, "and in a way, what has been happening over the past three or four years, with more and more supermarkets delivering groceries to your home, is a bit like the grocer's boy on the bike from 50 years ago."
But e-commerce is a totally new ball game. "Once upon a time, all the supermarkets had to do was bring the goods into the store and put them on the shelves; everything to do with packaging and transportation was the responsibility of the customer. If it's going to be a case of emailing an order for home delivery, there are all sorts of additional problems and hidden costs - how are they going to get the goods to your home when you're not there, for example?
"In the US they're trying out the idea of lockable compartments, including freezer compartments, on the outside of your house. Or it may be more feasible to have the goods delivered to a pick-up point that's convenient for you - somebody suggested petrol stations, which are open 24 hours a day, are highly accessible and have plenty of short-term parking. Which is why petrol stations took off as convenience stores, in the first place."
But before you file the last piece of information under "US only: safe to ignore", be warned that last week, Tesco UK announced plans for a massive expansion of its online shopping service, Tesco Direct. Despite plenty of highly-publicised kerfuffles over ordering and delivery, 2,000 customers a week are now logging on to the service, which currently has 250,000 users, with annual sales of £125 million sterling. That's the sort of demand which guarantees that Internet shopping is here to stay.
So next time you can't find a parking space, or your trolley has a fit of the wobblies, or there's no low-fat genetically-unmodified couscous left on the shelf, relax and enjoy it. One day, you may look back on the experience with the whimsical fondness currently reserved for Mrs Whatsit and the corner shop.