The genius of Hallmark economics

December 19, 2025·28 min·2 clips

Hallmark targets women over 25 with older actors and pharmaceutical ads, exploiting a gap other networks ignore.

Shopping online can make presents easy. The episode opens on that familiar holiday split: quick digital buying on one side, the clatter and fuss of stores on the other. Paul Haverschrud turns December shopping into a whole scene, with parking, lines, food courts, teenagers in puffy jackets, and schlepping. Some people hear that and run. Jason Gurriel, a Toronto writer, hears a ritual worth defending. He works on screens all day, so another evening buying things from a laptop sounds kind of awful. A search bar makes the world tidy, maybe too tidy. Gurriel says online shopping can put buyers at the mercy of algorithms and whatever a site wants to push next. Watching someone else scroll sounds even worse. The complaint lands as funny, but it also draws a clean line between picking from a list and drifting through shelves. Then comes the filthy box: the sad little gamble of deliveries that arrive damaged, wrong, or smaller than expected. Stores have a different charge. You can dig through bins, browse without buying, and stand near actual people while some unexpected thing catches your eye. Gurriel's father gives the argument its best detail. He remembers him as a world champion browser, drawn to watches and expensive fountain pens under glass. That memory makes browsing feel less like shopping and more like looking, lingering, wanting a little before deciding. The segment keeps the nostalgia loose without getting syrupy, then comes back to what different kinds of shopping do to attention, choice, and pleasure. Carl Shimada from Corpay closes things on a practical note before the holiday rating request.

As heard by us

A seasonal look at in-person shopping, algorithmic convenience, and Canada's steadier economic finish.

This Cost of Living episode treats holiday shopping as a pocket-sized economics story: convenience on one side, serendipity on the other. Jason Gurriel makes the case for shopping in person, not out of nostalgia exactly, but because online buying can feel like more screen time,…

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Why you'd press play

For when a mall walk feels wiser than another scroll through the algorithm.

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