Twenty years ago if we were out of stock on something in the Bellevue store, suggesting the Seattle store (after checking the computer) would be a welcomed suggestion. Now the thought of the drive is a turn off, and I'll ask how badly a customer 'needs it' before I say 'in the Seattle store'. People are upset less when I put it that way.
The fact the 15 mile drive might now also take an hour has something to do with it. It used to take about 15 minutes. Interstates run between the stores.
But gas prices matter and once they did not. I can remember gas so cheap a minimum wage worker could keep the tank full. I never concerned myself with how much it cost to drive from A to B in the same city. Now I think about it all the time. Where I live I have to drive at least five miles to get to anyplace I want to get to. That is an exaggeration, but I am in the middle of a 'bedroom' community. Stores are at least five miles away with the exception of one strip mall that has groceries and a drug store.
So, it is a five dollar bill to get anywhere and back. At my retail job that is 15 minutes of servitude.
* As I worked other jobs 'twenty years ago'. I only image what a customer would think about the suggestion of driving 15 miles to get something. But I have lived in the Seattle area twice as long and I know the place well. Twenty years ago fuel cost and time would not have been a big issue. Now it is.