Let’s Talk About…Online Shopping – Left Hand Valley Courier
Let’s Talk About…Online Shopping
I love my UPS guy but he is no Dolores.
Ok. The UPS guy just dropped off a package on my porch. I have no idea what is in it.
The weird thing is that this happens all the time.
Online shopping is so easy. Its ease is also its pitfall.
Online shopping is like having Walmart or Amazon in your backyard. You need band aids? Just click. You need compression socks? Just click. If you are like me and only opt for free shipping and free returns, it is addicting.
And practically effortless.
Here is the routine. If I see something I like, I guess my size, check the price and return policy, add it to my cart, click “pay now,” and forget I ordered it. When it arrives, I decide whether it looks and fits “well enough” to keep. If not, I hit “return” on my computer, print a label, and head back to my friends at The UPS Store.
Online shopping is both a sport and an art. Like most sports, online shopping is simple, methodical, and satisfying.
I have learned that what looks great on an online six-foot-tall model can make me look like I am wearing a Hefty bag or sausage casings.
It is an artform to successfully scroll through 400 white sweaters and ultimately find the best quality, best looking white sweater at the lowest price. The challenge sometimes rises to World Cup level and you hit it out of the park.
The result? Every day is like Christmas. Well, maybe not every day. But when I go down the stairs, I always look out the window like an eager puppy to see if a package is at the front door and get a thrill each time I see one. It’s an endorphin rush. Very satisfying.
At the same time, have you ever opened a package and thought, “I ordered this?”
Remember how your mom said, “Nothing good happens after midnight?” She was right.
I really need to put a 10:30 p.m. freeze on my shopping apps. Late night purchases like that cute pair of patent leather 5-inch sandals can wait until noon when you have the clarity to realize you will never wear them.
The alternative to online shopping is getting in the car and going to a physical store.
Why would you do that?
For several reasons.
Remember department stores? In case you forgot, a department store is a vast windowless appendage to a mall filled with clothes, shoes, and accessories that you can actually touch. That touch element should not be underestimated.
Department stores provide a fairly easy back-to-school shopping experience, a place to try on bathing suits in private, and pretty much used to be the only place to buy panty hose. Yes, panty hose was a thing.
Department stores can also deliver an experience impossible to duplicate online.
I remember my mother-in-law would go to Saks where a particular salesperson, Dolores, took care of her. It was like that scene from “Pretty Woman,” but in reverse.
Dolores would fall all over my mother-in-law bringing clothes she had saved just for her, sending an assistant to retrieve a different size, and fawning over how perfect my mother-in-law looked. I had never seen anything like it. No salesperson ever treated me that way. It was incredible just to be a satellite in her orbit.
Online shopping is sending that kind of experience the way of the covered wagon. In fact, most department stores seem completely empty of salespeople. Especially ones like Dolores.
And, trust me, Claude and Alexa are no Dolores.
Since I don’t have a Dolores to advise me, I sometimes make the ill-advised decision to keep those weird “well enough” green pants peering at me from the back of my closet. Those are the same green pants I had to buy because they were on sale and I thought I would be losing money if I didn’t get them.
As my mother also used to say, “There is a reason they are on sale.”
Physically shopping would have avoided all of that.
But then every day wouldn’t feel like Christmas and I wouldn’t be such good friends with my UPS guy.
