I Am Pretty Well Hooked

I admit, I am hooked. It might be very difficult to break this habit. It is simply too easy, too convenient to ever give it up. When I try I am almost always disappointed. The good news: what I am hooked on is not illegal or dangerous to my health.

Online shopping has me hook, line, and sinker.

Of course, I could blame this behavior on our locked-down virus-avoiding lifestyle at the moment. Until now I have never used curbside pickup or delivery services for grocery and household products, and very rarely for meal delivery. After all, the whole point of eating out is to go out.

But, the virus situation has opened up a new world to me. The convenience, the increased safety of not mixing with others, and the ability to find (mostly) what I need (except for toilet paper and disinfectant wipes early on) has been a pleasant surprise. Not walking up and down the aisles means I can't make impulse purchases. I stick with what I need when placing an order online.

Of course, there is more to life than pantry items and paper towels. Thinking back to the good old days before lockdowns and social distancing, I figured it would take longer to accomplish so much online. Take clothes shopping, for example. I would like to see the actual color or fit of a new sweater or shirt. I feel better if I can try on a pair of shoes before buying. 

But, the physical stores never seem to have what I am looking for in my size, or color, or style. The display shelves looked like a tropical storm blew in the front doors tossing everything in a jumble. Clerks were on lunch break (regardless of the time of day) or didn't know because they worked in another department.

The place where large pants are supposed to be was just as likely to be where small or medium sizes end up. The shoes I want always are available in sizes smaller than my feet require.

Sometimes, I have been told by an employee that their particular company is putting most of its resources in developing and strengthening its online presence. That becomes obvious when a customer wanders the aisles. Of course, recently, that was a very smart decision. Retail outlets are living or dying based on their online presence. 

To complicate matters, Phoenix is caught in a weird shopping time warp: winter clothes start appearing in August. Summer weight shorts, shirts, or bathing suits are much harder to find by then. While some parts of the country are not that far from tugging on a sweatshirt, we have another two months of 100 degree days. Summer-appropriate clothing is still needed. My savior? Online stores, who manage to offer four seasons worth of clothing twelve months of the year. 

How about odorless paint thinner or particular paint colors for my hobby? Yes, I can buy what I need in various stores....if in stock. Too many times I have driven to a Michaels or someplace similar and found the paint thinner shelf bare or the color I need not available at that location. But, if I check online, another location does have what I need. They will pick it off the shelf and deliver my purchase to the trunk of my car in a few hours.

New blades for my electric shaver,  4 color Bic pens (I love these!), a new water filter for the refrigerator, specialized cables for various electronics? I could drive all over town to check on an item being in stock, but that is frustrating.

So, I use the power of the Internet to find what I need, in my size or color, made to fit my brand of whatever, and that odd cable needed to hook Betty's phone to an external hard drive. A new amplifier for my listening and dancing pleasure? It is available at Best Buy, but not for a week. Amazon wins that game with delivery in 24 hours.

I am quite aware of some of the issues with online shopping: the damage to the environment from all those trucks loaded with all those cardboard boxes, the poor working conditions inside the massive warehouses, and the low wages too many folks are cursed with. 

Of course, the brick and mortar stores have delivery trucks coming in from all across the country to deliver stuff probably made in other countries by workers who are lucky to make a dollar or two a day. Then there is the cost to heat and cool large retail spaces, light them up, and pave large parking lots. So, neither approach is damage-free. Plus, the instore workers have been risking their health for the past few months to keep those grocery shelves stocked.

I have taken advantage of Amazon's offer to group all my orders together and bring them on one day a week, instead of a package today, another in two days, and yet another on Sunday. That is a small step toward curtailing some of the waste. For a really small need, like repair parts for my sprinkler system, new furnace filters, a can of white paint, or something along those lines, I drive the ten minutes to a place I am sure will have what I need and is open. The Internet isn't best for everything.

But, if I am any indication of how many consumers act, I would not be investing in retail space right now. Shopping as a hobby turns some folks on; to me, shopping is a necessity, a chore, something to complete as quickly as possible. 

It is also an area of my life where my lack of a strong consumerism gene becomes obvious. I look to reduce what I own to just what I need. I don't buy something online because I am bored, or it looks flashy or inviting. I don't go crazy on Prime Day. I buy something because I need it for some reason. The last several months have strengthened that behavior. Shopping as a hobby or way to kill time might be another victim of the pandemic, at least for the foreseeable future.

Oh, there is one area of "regular" life that I am anxious to resume: dining out. Having dinner delivered, at inflated prices, doesn't do it for me. To help support a local restaurant I have done so a few times in the last five months. But, the experience of leaving the house and joining others in a restaurant environment is one that Internet shopping cannot replace. And, after Covid-19 lockdown, I want to see other people enjoying themselves over a meal.

Same for baseball games. The season started yesterday...in empty stadiums with none of the excitement that comes from 40,000 people. I want to go back to Chase Field. That is something online will never replicate. Museums, live plays, even movies feel different in person. Streaming has kept me sane, but I want the physical experience at some point.

What about you? Am I a little unusual? Do you like to physically touch, see, smell, or otherwise physically interact with something before plunking down your credit card? 

Or, will you and I cross paths someday in that great, always open, always well-stocked, Internet store in the sky (or cloud)?