No frills

A no-frills or no frills service or product is one for which the non-essential features have been removed to keep the price low. The term "frills" originally refers to a style of fabric decoration. Something offered to customers for no additional charge may be designated as a "frill" – for example, free drinks on airline journeys, or a radio installed in a rental car. No-frills businesses operate on the principle that by removing luxurious additions, customers may be offered lower prices. Common products and services for which no-frills brands exist include budget airlines, supermarkets, vacations and used vehicles. No-frills supermarkets are recognisable by their store design and business model. They do not decorate aisles and sometimes do not even restock shelves with foods. In this case, pallets of the products on offer are simply parked alongside the aisles, and customers picking up products will gradually empty them. When all items on a pallet have been sold, they are replaced. Prices are given on plain labels. Queueing at the checkout is relatively common, as staffing levels reflect average demand rather than peak demand. At actual peak times, customers often have to wait. Shopping bags are charged for, as they are seen as a frill. Thus many shoppers bring reusable shopping bags, buy shopping bags at a low fee, put their shopping in the cardboard boxes that the products originally came in, or put it directly in their shopping cart; customers must bag their own purchases. They somewhat employ the Pareto principle when choosing which goods to offer, meaning that in most supermarkets, 20% of products on sale account for 80% of what customers buy. Therefore, they only stock the most commonly sold products. They only take cash and debit cards (although this has changed in many chains over the years due to increasingly prevalence and usage of credit cards and mobile payment apps). They only open at peak times, e.g., 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday, although some stores are open 24 hours.