Sunday, November 23, 2008

To Shop or Not To Shop - That is the Question

I discovered the wonderful world of shopping online this weekend. Not like I've never ordered anything online before, but this was different. This was prompted by my kids and my nephews bonding as they surfed Abercrombie's website and found so many cute things that they just couldn't live without. Don't worry. On clearance.

I fully appreciate the convenience of being able to visit sixteen different stores while I'm sitting home in my jammies. And being able to just call up my nephew and say "hey, you like that shirt?" is great. But I don't know. I like being able to see something in real life before I buy it. Touch it. Try it on. See how it looks.

If you don't like it in the store, you just don't buy it. If you don't like it when you order online, it takes 3-5 business days to find out that you don't like it. Then you need to ship it back. Or have it sit in your closet for a week until you have a chance to take it back.

Don't forget shipping and handling. If you're only ordering one $20 item, and the shipping is ten bucks up to a hundred dollars purchase, it hardly seems worthwhile. By the time you finish with shipping and tax, your $20 shirt is now closer to $35.

Does shopping online have it's advantages? Yeah, it does. But is this going to keep me out of the stores? Nah...I don't think so.

8 comments:

pinnyf said...

its a lot more fun when we cant all go to the stores together and a lot of time the stores dont have clearance items so we have no choice but to shop online.

Anonymous said...

Hellooo? Zappos.com? Free overnight delivery, free shipping, and free returns. (I just used your favorite word free - I mean, three - times. And, if you don't like them, all you have to do is give them to Ray, and POOF! They're gone, and you get your money back.

And yes, they have clearance.

Shir Chadash said...

Zappos is expensive, though- I've never seen anything on Zappos that wasn't sold for at least 25% less on ShoeMall.com, Shoebuy.com, or the department store websites.

pinnyk said...

how about u get the best of both worlds-you look at the company website to see the sales then u go into the store to try it on and buy it etc

aliza said...

shopping online is great cuz you don't have to leave your home. and sites like Piperlime and Zappos make that really convenient. but sometimes you just need regular retail therapy, and you can't get that by sitting in front of a screen

Who Me? said...

pinnyk, they don't always have the same stuff in the stores and online. Guess, I'll just have to do both!! It really is convenient to find out in 3 seconds that they don't have the size you want instead of spending ten minutes going through each and every item, hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe there is one left in the size you want.

And besides, I have no trouble letting my daughter surf the web with cute, boy cousins. Can't say I'd let her go to the mall with them.

And one of the scary things about shopping online is that now we can literally spend our entire day sitting in front of the computer. On the one hand, never have to get dressed or put on makeup. On the other hand, are we all going to start turning into those wierd computer geeks??

I'm waiting for y2k to show up and complain that now there are even more ways to shop!

Anonymous said...

Y2K already saw this and figured it's out of his league.

Leslie Dratler said...

We are not computer geeks.

We are degreed software engineers.

I shall defend this position until someone manages to pry my genuine-replica Star Trek Type II Phaser from my cold dead hands.

:)