Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Sutherland’s Law of Bad Maths

Many statistical models involving humans make the mistake of assuming that 10 x 1 is the same as 1 x 10

Imagine for a moment a parallel universe in which shops had mostly not yet been invented, and that all commerce took place online.

This may seem like a fantastical notion, but it more or less describes rural America 100 years ago. In 1919 the catalogues produced by Sears, Roebuck & Company and Montgomery Ward were, for the 52 per cent of Americans who then lived in rural areas, the principal means of buying anything remotely exotic. In that year, Americans spent over $500 million dollars on mail order purchases, half through the two Chicago companies. Yet in 1925, Sears opened its first bricks and mortar shop. By 1929, the pair had opened a further 800.

So Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods Market may be history repeating itself. Certainly we Brits have every right to feel smug about it since, by moving into physical retailing, Amazon seems to have spent several hundred billion dollars only to discover that Argos had it right all along.

A physical presence still counts. I could go on endlessly about the psychological factors at play here. But one element is what I call ‘Sutherland’s Law of Bad Maths’. This is the lazy assumption that 1 x 10 is the same as 10 x 1. In pure maths, of course, they are the same: in reality, they very rarely are.

Let me explain. Online shopping is a very good way for ten people to buy one thing. It is not a good way for one person to buy ten things. Try and buy ten different things simultaneously online (as you may do before Christmas) and it all turns chaotic. The various items arrive on four separate days. Vans appear at your house at bizarre hours. And one delivery always fails, requiring you to drive to an industrial estate in Dartford on Christmas Eve, thus wiping out any putative time savings.

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