We do tons of online shopping, but again it depends on the item.
I like to get my butt out of my seat and into public more than my spouse does, so I will do B&M shopping more often. There is the ability to visually browse what’s out there and respond to inspiration, that is just not the same online. However, if it’s an item that doesn’t involve evaluating the physical object, or is repeat purchasing of supplies, etc., then online it is.
Curiously, within a short distance form my home there are 2 Amazon stores opening. I’ll be curious to see what that is all about.
It depends- if I know fairly specifically what I want ( a thin black sweater, a fit and flare dress, a tub mat suitable for a refinished tub) I’m probably going to shop online. It’s just easier to find something that specific online. If all I know is that I’m looking for a dress to wear at a wedding, i’m going to a brick and mortar store
I will look online for a local retailer, but if I don’t find it, I order online. I do have a shoe store that stocks my size 14s, so I go to them, although it is not especially convenient.
I was tempted to use a zappo’s coupon this year, 10% off for compensation from a class action lawsuit. lol. no deals there but they had sheepskin slippers. Instead found a a company in BC CAN. that had better slippers cheaper and they shipped and arrived in 5 days. yeah!
When I was a kid, we lived in the extreme suburbs, almost country. No shopping malls; department stores were an hour’s drive or more and time was short. So my family ordered a lot of clothes from Sears & Montgomery Ward catalogs. Returning stuff that didn’t fit was a hassle.
Then shopping malls were developed and I lived in a populated area where everything was only a short distance away. Catalog ordering made no sense anymore.
Now I live, once again, in a remote area without shopping malls and with poor shopping choices, so much of my buying is online. It’s just like a catalog store, only different.
Returning stuff that doesn’t fit is still a hassle.
My own size 14s mean that outside of athletic shoes, I have never had the pleasure of going to a shoe store and finding something nice in my size (as an adult, of course).
Shoe stores in the States don’t stock men’s shoes larger than 13, so online shoe shopping is the only way for a guy like me to buy shoes.
I can provide a two-pronged response: as a shopper and as a seller.
As a shopper, I’ve been doing almost entirely online shopping lately, except for clothes and food. I do buy shoes from Amazon and I’ve been subscribing to one of the meal delivery services, though. I do enjoy browsing B&M stores but tend to feel pressured to buy which I hate so I don’t do it often. The last time I was in the large Barnes&Noble near me, I was asked if I needed help by no less than FIVE staffers. At that point they’re clearly just letting me know that I’m being watched for shoplifting and I am not really welcome to browse their books. I haven’t stepped foot in there since (and have bought several hundred dollars worth of books on Amazon).
I am mixed on services. I patronize a local shoe repair service because they do good work and are convenient. I also patronized a sweater repair service in NY that I found online because I ripped a new, expensive and gorgeous sweater and didn’t want to throw it away. (They did amazing work, you can’t tell it was ever damaged!)
As a seller, here is the behavior pattern I’ve seen from people who patronize my business: I sell the most on the weekends I vend in person at local pet events. (Caveat: this is true for the two largest ones I work at because they are well organized and focus on helping the vendors do well just as much as making the attendees have fun. I have done a few small ones that were poorly organized and sell next to nothing so I don’t go back to those. And I found that the largest ones with names like “Pet Expo” have vendor registration fees so high that they eat more than the revenue I get from the event, leaving me at a net loss. I don’t go back to those, either.)
For my online sales, I’ve found that reputation matters a HUGE amount. As I’m becoming known, my sales are rising. It’s a slow haul, though, given that my competition is the Big Box stores and Amazon. I’ve also discovered that being a small online business means people don’t consider me to be a local business (even though I am of course) and they tend to lump me in with the “online store” category, directly putting me in competition with Amazon, Petco and Petsmart for their business. Convincing potential customers that I am a small, local business that needs support (and that happens to be entirely online) is a challenge.
I only go to brick and mortar stores if I realized that I need something by tonight, and I can’t find enough crap I need to get to the $35 minimum for free same day shipping on Amazon. Everything else is either an online order, a digital purchase, or store pickup (for groceries).
I shop at two places. Online @ Amazon and B&M @ Lowe’s Home Improvement. It’s very rare that I shop anywhere else.
My wife does go to B&M for groceries, though she has recently started ordering them online and when she gets to the store they’re ready to be put in the back of the car.
I’m 61. I shop online 99% of the time. There are rare exceptions, like yesterday when I needed a new chain for one of my chainsaws. I took the old chain to a store, where they were able to measure the length and make me a new one.
Never heard of them before; but, OK, the giver mentioned shoes, the site’s got a lot of shoes. I could use a pair of semi-dressy flats or low heels with a wide toe box: there’s something fairly specific for you.
There does not appear to be any way to search the site for flats, for low heels, for wide toe box, or for casual versus dressy. Some fifteen minutes poking around left me entirely unable to tell whether they carry no such thing, or whether I just hadn’t looked at enough pictures on enough pages to find it. I’d expect to have been able to answer that question in considerably less than 15 minutes at any brick-and-mortar store, whether by finding someone to ask or by looking at the displays. (Admittedly, it would take me at least 15 minutes to get to any brick-and-mortar store.)
A lot of people (especially younger folks) don’t really care about wrapping paper and bows. In a sense, the Amazon mailer box or envelope IS the wrapping. After all, the gift is concealed and the “wrapping” must be removed to see what you’ve gotten.
I fully understand wanting Christmas presents (especially!) to look a certain way for presentation. My point is only that if getting the presents wrapped just so ever gets to be too big of a chore … the gift recipients are not likely to hold it against you.
Anything that is commonly stocked in a suburb of Washington, DC, I’ll most likely buy at a physical store. Groceries, clothes, auto parts, “Wal-Mart stuff,” Home Depot, “something at the mall,” etc. I’ll use on-line to search for best hotel tickets, airline tickets, theme park tickets, etc. And DVDs. Most of the DVDs I buy are imported from east Asia, so no other way to get them except via the Internet. I will say that once or twice a year, I’ll load up on R1 DVDs, and can save a ton of money by getting Amazon or DeepDiscount to ship them all to me at once, so that beats looking around Target and paying extra $$ (not to mention you can’t find much back-catalog at Wal-Mart or Target).
Most stores are absolutely horrible places, a form of psychological warfare designed to herd you and your fellow customers like cattle through the gauntlet in such a way as to part you from as much of your money as possible. Therefore I buy almost everything online, from groceries to underwear to cars.
The exception might be places like antique stores where the goal is to kill time searching through the haystack of old garbage in hopes of finding a shiny, inexpensive needle. But even so, if I know what I want, I can get antiques more quickly and in better condition online for only a little more. So I’d say I do 99% of my shopping online. Occasionally I’ll want to make a recipe tonight and find out I’m missing a specific ingredient, so I’ll make a short trip to the grocery store for that. And I rarely drink, but when I do I’ll go to the local warehouse liquor store to find a nice bottle of whisky or rum to buy.
Online for nearly everything. I was an early adopter at amazon – remember when they included packs of post-it notes in the boxes?
I’m a fairly standard size, and I like particular brands in clothes and shoes, and I haven’t had to return clothing in literally years. I buy a lot of OOP books, so I’m on abebooks at least once or twice a week. DON’T look for them on amazon. Some crazy people offer some OOP books for crazy prices – like hundreds of dollars when I can find multiple copies in good/fine condition on abebooks in the $30-$40 range. I also collect things in certain categories, and it’s a real pleasure to be able to shop the entire world to find something very particular.
But mainly it’s the traffic around here that makes me turn to my PC. Traffic SUCKS. Parking can be problematic. You get to the store, and they don’t have what you’re looking for (even if you checked before you left the house – they lie), and you end up going to multiple places and coming home without whatever the item is anyway. That’s happened to me a few times, and it really reinforces my desire to shop online.
Produce I try to buy from local farmer’s markets, supporting local farmers and all that. Although “local” can be relative – the market only requires that it be grown in California, and I’ve seen stuff from farms as far away as San Diego.
Other “everyday” items: other groceries, cleaning supplies, health & beauty items, etc. I usually buy from brick and mortar stores (Trader Joe’s and Target are walking distance from my house), but there are a few exceptions. I do have a recurring order on Amazon for cat food just to save me a trip to PetCo, since Target doesn’t carry the brand I buy. The other exception is hard to find exotic/gourmet ingredients.
Clothing, also brick and mortar just because I want to try it on first.
Pretty much everything else I buy online. Electronics, camping/outdoor gear, other random stuff.
