UNITED STATES—I really hate online shopping; I really do because it is impacting the physical brick-and-mortar stores that the consumers can actually go into. Just this past week for the first time in about six weeks, I ventured to one of the local malls in my region and I was stunned. Why? It was fairly crowded for a Tuesday, not to mention a ton of stores that I had visited during the Christmas holidays were no longer there. They closed up shop and I had no actual idea.
I was dumbfounded because stores that had been at this mall since its inception, gone, closed, no notice to the consumer at all. One minute the retailer was there and now they’re gone. It totally sucks because for one of the retailers that was the last remaining store in the state. So I won’t be shopping there anymore because I refuse to shop online. There is a reason I don’t shop online when it comes to clothing: BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO TRY ITEMS ON!
It is so annoying going to a retailer and you have to wait in line because someone is returning a bevy of packages that were shipped to their home. Most of the items are clothing; things that they could not wear, did not fit properly or wasn’t aesthetically appealing on the body. Well, that sometimes happens when you a relying on an image displayed on a computer screen, tablet or phone. You can’t feel the texture. You don’t know if it is skinny fit, wide fit or natural fit. The color might not pop in person as you think it did online. There are so many issues with online shopping, I truly could continue for days if need be.
This is a message to the American public, to get off your butt and go into a store if you can. Before you know it, we won’t have big box retailers to go to purchase goods. You’re going to have to purchase everything online, wait for it to be shipped to your home and pray that it fits properly because if not you’re going to have to return it. However, you won’t be doing it in person, you will be doing it via postal mail and we all know how much of a headache and nuisance that can be.
You don’t know precisely when something has arrived at its destination unless you’re paying extra money for it. Not to mention, if you are getting things shipped to your home you have to now worry about someone being at home to ensure the package is retrieved before a porch pirate steals it. Yes, the porch pirates are a menace around the holiday season, but it is getting worse in general now because people are desperate. Desperation equates to more crime, just saying.
The mall is a great place to socialize and even if you don’t want to deal with the large crowds, guess what, you can go to the mall during the weekday, and not the weekend when it tends to be a bit busier when it comes to foot traffic. You hit those stores you like during the week and you are less likely to have to deal with whiny toddlers, annoying teenagers or people just in general that can be annoying.
Our laziness is really about to start to hurt us if we don’t realize how much it can hurt us in the long run. Just because something is convenient doesn’t mean it is a good thing. Could you imagine not being able to go to the grocery store anymore because it could happen? If the pandemic taught me anything, is you have to appreciate the things that you have because when the country went into shutdown mode, guess what, you couldn’t go anywhere and it just about drove a ton of people insane in the process.
I don’t want to imagine what this world would be like if we can’t talk to people in person, have a conversation with a salesperson looking for an item, trying on something and realizing BEFORE you purchase it, it doesn’t look flattering on you or isn’t the fit you expected. It saves you a lot of time. So for all of you NOT going to your local malls and retailers, you might want to start doing so because they are starting to vanish quicker than you think and before you know it, they’ll be long gone and some of the businesses won’t care because it cuts down their overall cost, and increases their profits in the process, and you lose the opportunity to engage in another public setting.
Written By Davy Jones
