You Have An Opportunity, Now What?

Retail stores nation wide should offer a discount to shoppers that bring reusable bags to help offset the nation's carbon footprint and promote more people to care about the environment.

I think that there are many others with this need, not just retail stores. Everyone should care about the environment, but often times people won't support a cause unless there's something in it for themselves. As for testing the what, there could be different kinds of discounts, like 10% off a purchase or $5 off your total. There could also be different days that offer higher discounts than others, like the weekend when there are more people shopping. As for the why, some people may say the why is to reward shoppers for being good to the environment, or others could say it's about adding an incentive for the people that don't normally shop with reusable bags.

Interviews:

1. I interviewed my mom who has always been big into recycling and using reusable bags. I asked her what she thought about this idea of adding an incentive for shoppers to go green. Her response was that it was a good idea, she just wished stores had started doing this a long time ago. She also mentioned that Target and Whole Foods already do something like this, but those were the only stores she could think of that do that. I asked her what kind of discount she thought would work best and she said a set amount off per bag brought, so like $0.05 for every bag you bring in.

2. I then interviewed my brother. He said that he thought it was a good idea to give people an incentive, but if the discount was small, like $0.05 per bag, people might not think that's a big enough discount to care. He also pointed out that a lot of people don't have reusable bags so some people would have to buy the reusable bags in order to get the discount. So it might work for some people, but there would still be people not using the reusable bags.

3. My next interview was with a co-worker. She said she had never really thought about bringing reusable bags to the store when shopping, because she uses the plastic bags she gets from the stores for other things. She said she would like to get a discount when shopping though and even suggested that on top of the small discount for each bag, stores could also offer a punch card of sorts that you get punches for for every visit you bring in bags. When you get enough punches, then you get a bigger discount off of your purchase. I thought that was a very good idea.

4. The next interview was with a different co-worker. He said that he didn't think the idea of discounts with reusable bags would really make much of an impact with the environment since there would still be lots of people using the plastic bags. He also added that he would probably forget his reusable bags when he went shopping, so it wouldn't be worth it.

5. My last interview was with my sister-in-law. She loves shopping sales and getting a good deal, so when I asked about about discounts for bringing reusable bags she loved the idea. She thought that an incentive like that would definitely help more people care about the environment. She did add though that it would probably take a long time for any real impact to happen with the environment from this. 

During these interviews, I realized that while some people may think it's a great idea, others may think that the discount isn't enough for them to care. So there would have to be a bigger incentive for more people to join in to really make an impact with the environment.