In Store Shopping vs. Online?

fureverywhere

fureverywhere

beloved friend who will always be with us in spiri
Location
Northern NJ, USA
Don't know about you but Target and Walmart are pretty close. Otherwise click on the perfect gift at best price. Online or in person? What do you think?
 

I prefer to shop at the brick and mortar stores, look at the stuff in person, try things on, and be able to return them to the store if I need to without going to the post office and mailing them back. If it's not clothing or shoes, I have bought stuff online though....did have to pay postage once for a return though.
 
For clothes I can't imagine online. They all have their size definition. Okay shoes ordered from Duluth Trading were just right. Otherwise I have to try on everything before I buy.
 

I do most of my shopping on line including groceries. I love that they deliver my groceries to me and I don't have to walk around the supermarket with my bad back .
 
I've gotten to where I do most shopping online, excluding groceries and some clothing. It seems like here, most stores don't stock much anymore, or things are out of stock and I hate running around all over town trying to find a particular thing -- not to mention the parking hassle.
 
I do my research online, tend to make first time purchases in stores and tend to reorder online.

For me the best part of the holiday shopping season is having the stores open early, I hate it when retail stores open at 9 or 10 o'clock.

I miss the days when we had a strong center city and all of the old family owned department stores competed with each other on Christmas window displays. I don't get the same feeling of holiday hustle and bustle when I'm in a mall.
 
Online, almost everything. I find the choices in shops is all the same and some things I cannot get locally without a long drive. Knitting wool for eg, a decent store is an hour away from me and across a toll bridge both ways. I can have super wool, all types shipped from the UK. I can buy cashmere, silk plus all the regular wools. there is a one flat rate of 3.99 sterling for shipping up to to 2kg of wool, the Uk takes off the taxes as it is going overseas, I don't pay duty at this end and it is delivered to my door for less tan the cost of one bridge too. I find this with a lot of things.
 
It depends. If I buying an X, and I can get the same X delivered to my house at the same price, why waste gas? Clothes? I dunno
Having groceries delivered sounds good-bad back, so I'll check into that.
 
With the exception on groceries and clothing, I buy almost everything online, mostly from Amazon. We have a lot of stores around here but so many items are out of stock and limited variety. Having to deal with parking, long checkout lines and often lack of service or information on the products I want to purchase, is not my idea of a good shopping experience. Buying on Amazon gives me lots of product info and customer reviews and it's easy. I can shop on my own schedule. I have Prime shipping so products are generally here in 2 days. If there is any problem, returns are simple - print a label and drop it off at UPS or pay a couple bucks to have it picked up. In over 10 years on buying thousands of things, I've probably retuned only a handful. Prices are usually better too.

I've purchased a few clothing items from Amazon and occasionally a few food items, but most of those items come from brick and mortar stores. Spices can be a good deal if you use a lot of a particular spice and can order large quantities. (A pound of Dill was a much larger package than I expected. I ended up giving some of it to friends and neighbors.)
 
Most of my shopping is done online, so much easier for me, I'd do it all there, but some things like produce, meats and such, I do prefer to handle and pick out myself.
 
Other than clothes and groceries, we buy much of our stuff online. We generally save between 20% to as much as 50% online....plus we save the time and gas by not running around to all the stores. IMO, traditional Retail stores will be history in another couple of decades. Even Walmart is pushing its customers to shop online...with good discounts for online purchases.
 
I totally agree with Amazon especially with Prime.

Groceries I also have delivered but..and it is a big but. I find that the fresh stuff like veggies and fruit is iffy. I have two large stores that deliver , There is a space for messages next to everything on the order form and at the end too and I do put things in the space, eg I only like pears if rock hard and very green and cauliflower has to be totally flawless or I won't use it. One store delivered an order and most of the produce was past it's best. I phoned and within the hour they turned up with replacements for everything that was no good and a credit note covering the original cost so I got about about $30 free . Big apologies and since then I have had no problems but I do state on the order that produce will be returned if not acceptable. They did agree that what was sent was wrong and explained to me that many of the pickers are young and don't do grocery shopping for themselves so they suggest putting the comment on the order so the picker will see it and be more careful. It seems to have worked well but I still avoid buying perishables unless I am really stuck.

When you think about it many groceries are heavy, gallons of milk, potatoes, gallons of bleach, bags of flour, cartons of soda and and canned goods so even if you use it just for those then you can do your perishables without much problems

My medications are also delivered free of charge and that is good if things are going bad.

I have a local butcher who doesn't deliver as a rule but he lives quite close to me and if I phone an order he will drop if off and he knows all my preferences re steaks etc so that works really well if I need to do it.


I just had a sewing room built and needed shelving for it. I bought Ikea. I have an Ikea shop about 40 minutes away but this time I bought online. Delivery was $99 but it was one charge for everything not per item so I had 6 bookcases a large worktable and a heavy double pedestal desk plus 30 storage boxes delivered for that one price. I would not have been able to get it in my vehicle anyway so t worked well for me. Walmart delivered 4 of those tall plastic drawer towers too and delivery was free.

I would be totally lost without online shopping.
 
As soon as I returned home from my first Uber experience the door bell rang with my Grocery order from yesterday. I was able to go on my computer and see the items that I wanted. I can even communicate with my PERSONAL SHOPPER giving instructions as to meats fish veggies and fruits that I prefer. My order cost $112.00 and delivery was free because of the time window that I chose for delivery. Sure beats walking the aisles and waiting in line to check out behind someone that can't remember their PIN number.
 
I do much of my shopping online but am trying to start shopping offline more, too. So I went to Buyers Outlet and bought a few new nice plants. Going to start plant tending again like I used to.
 
I shop for everything but groceries online. (OK, sometimes I even order groceries online, but the variety of the online grocery store is somewhat limited!) I get most of my stuff from Amazon. That includes toilet paper, etc. I'm a big man, and get my clothes in Amazon's Big Men's section.
 
Lon said:
As soon as I returned home from my first Uber experience the door bell rang with my Grocery order from yesterday. I was able to go on my computer and see the items that I wanted. I can even communicate with my PERSONAL SHOPPER giving instructions as to meats fish veggies and fruits that I prefer. My order cost $112.00 and delivery was free because of the time window that I chose for delivery. Sure beats walking the aisles and waiting in line to check out behind someone that can't remember their PIN number.
Click to expand...
Sounds nice to have a personal shopper. :)
 
Oh I like the plan about plant tending. I love my plants.

The person who didn't know there pin number could have been me,thank goodness the man behind me was a patient chap.

I actually enjoy grocery shopping better than most other shopping, it's a bit hard to do on days when legs don't work though LOL
 
I buy both ways depending on the product. I like to try on the clothes, but I've had good luck mostly in ordering clothes online, too. I actually like grocery shopping at the store. Thankfully, I can get around okay.
 
I hate store shopping, but pretty much have to, for clothing purchases- so I can look at/try them on. Everything else can be bought online.
 
I'm a big guy. I have a 54" waist. I can't buy my clothes at Walmart. A few years ago I found a Big Men's section at JC Penney. But they didn't have much stuff. That's why I order clothes online! I've usually had decent luck.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top