Online shopping - how convenient is it actually?
Not really usre where to put this, so mods feel free to move it if you think that putting it under life.style is inappropriate.
My original thought was more related to online cashless payments in general- if you don't know, there's actually a way to donate directly to Tildes to help pay for server costs if you like this site enough. However, I've discovered that I don't like to often do any monetary transactions online- there's just something that's a pain in the butt about entering 19 digits online (16 for card number, then three more for the SVC).
But in the spirit of wanting an actual discussion... buying things online has been an option since I was a teenager, so we're talking about 20 years ago. You'll usually hear people and companies say "You can go shopping right from the comfort of your own home, there's so much to choose from, and if you choose the right option you can have it in just a day or two... just enter your credit card info and you're all set!". But for me personally, it's the last two that I take issue with.
You have the overall credit card issue- right now, I live in a country where cash is still king, even if it IS trying to catch up to other nations with cashless payments. For credit cards, besides entering the number being annoying, and then your address (billing and shipping, usually but not always the same place), it can be far too easy to spend way too much on credit card. Remember, many countries actively push the consumerist mindset, which is a MAJOR trap. And just to mention it- I do NOT trust any sites or devices to remember my card info. I'm VERY paranoid of being hacked- specifically talking about storing any info in something like Google Wallet/Pay/whatever it's called.
But then you have the other issue, and why even though you might get more selection online, I would still rather visit an actual storefront, even if it's an hour or so away. To put it simply- when the transaction is completed, I want to have the item in my possession. Buying online, you always run into the shipping (and handling) issue- Amazon is one of the fastest, and they still take at least two days. In the US, the issue has been made worse because of the post office situation. or in other words: you paid the money, now how long will it take to have the actual physical item? It's probably just a product of how I grew up, but I hate having to wait longer than a day after I've already given you my money.
So, people of Tildes, what about you- do you find online shopping to be extremely convenient, or do you have your own issues with buying things online?
I live out in the country (the boonies) and needed a new heater fan for a vehicle. Its a 40 km round trip to the nearest auto parts store and I looked up the part on their website and it was $300 for the fan.
Then I looked on Amazon and they had the exact same fan for $50. I ordered it and had it in my hand, delivered to my home, in 24 hours. I not only saved $250 on the price, I save a wasted hour of driving plus gas costs getting it from Amazon.
I dont love supporting Amazon because I would much prefer my money goes into the local economy but NOT at six times the price and with far more inconvenience. I actually wrote the parts store and they changed the price of the fan to $121 from $300. Better. But still not great.
Amazon is paying local workers (drivers, warehouse workers) just as much, or usually more, than BigBoxStore is paying their stockers and cashiers. Unless the auto parts store you were looking at is locally owned (they usually aren’t), the money isn’t staying local anyways.
Good point. Never thought of it that way. I guess I think of it as "local" because I know one of the guys who works at the counter for years whereas my Amazon drivers are temporary gig workers - get a different one almost every time, not sure they stay around for very long. But yeah, that parts store is a national chain store.
This was the issue I had growing up. The local dept store I worked for paid me less than Walmart would have. I still worked there but I had a hard time bemoaning them going out of business. They were still hiring local workers and the owners of the local dept store had a very nice house and all.
I don't love Walmart, and rarely shop there for myself, but I don't think all small businesses deserve to keep existing because they're local either.
This must depend where you live - many things I buy on amazon are next-day or even same-day.
There are a few things I buy that I don't really care whether or not I have it "in hand" quickly or not. For example, I am going on an overseas trip next week. I bought a travel pillow online. I don't really care if it shows up tomorrow or a week from now, and the selection is much larger online than I am going to find in any store here.
There is also buying things from store online for pickup - I do this with stores like Best Buy fairly often if I want the item today. Or, if not actually buying it online, or I want it even quicker (I don't want to wait the hour or two it takes for them to have it 'ready for pickup') I will go online to see if the store even has it before going there to get it myself.
Overall, I find online shopping very convenient.
Yeah, the value proposition of Amazon is hard to ignore. Last night during dinner the subject of a cleaning product for the dog came up in conversation. I took out my phone, and after some discussion about ingredients, I ordered what we needed. The whole process took about 3 minutes, including the discussion, and it's scheduled to arrive today.
I've come to loathe wasting my time going to the store for things like this, especially not knowing if they'll even have what I want in stock. I've found that there are very few things I actually need to have in hand right away.
edit: Now that I've thought about it a bit, I'm pretty sure I actually get most things sooner with online shopping than physical retail. Usually I have to wait until the weekend or a rare light work day to get the shopping done. If I'm busy, maybe that trip to the store gets delayed for weeks or even months. With online shopping I just order whenever I think about it and it arrives whether I'm busy or not.
I prefer online shopping to in person shopping most of the time because physical stores often don't have what I need anymore. Most of the electronic stores have gone out of business and Best Buy only carries TVs, Washing Machines, and Refrigerators for the most part. I wanted to buy a router once and Best Buy had only 3 options to choose from. Going on the internet gives you a much wider selection of products to choose from. If you use a large retailer like Amazon, you often get the item the same or next day with free shipping. If I do buy something in a physical store, I usually check online first to make sure they carry what I need. I have wasted way too much time going to stores to find that they don't carry the thing I'm looking for.
I don't know how Google specifically handles storing your card info, but Apple stores your card info encrypted on your device. It's only unlockable if someone has your device in hand and knows your passcode or can use your biometric login. Apple will also create a brand new card number for each transaction, so anyone who may try to steal your card data in an Apple Pay transaction will not be able to use that data.
Beyond all of that, I still don't necessarily trust that my card data is safe. I have notifications set up with my bank to send a text message each time my credit or debit card is used in a transaction. I can immediately dispute a transaction and cancel my card from an app if anything suspicious happens.
You make a good point, and also another great argument for online shopping: the selection is much better. No physical limitations on what you can have on display (the old "check the back" line or such)... and I admit that while I'll check to see what a store has in stock, if I REALLY want something and can't get it... yeah, I go online.
I find Amazon to be too convenient to abandon, as much as I'd like to do my insignificant part to lower Bezos' influence. I am older, a stroke survivor, and without any personal means of transport. Being able to get large items delivered to my home is far too easy to do to stop doing it. But beyond that... the range of choice and availability makes it something of a no-brainer.
While my partner does have a vehicle (and thus, expanded shopping options), they also have full-time employment, so tine off is limited, to the point where I even get local groceries delivered (not by Amazon, I'm not made of money!)
I'd love it if another, more ethical company (or companies) could replace Amazon, but the nature of wealth and commerce means that the vast majority of companies have skeletons in the closet by the time you hear of them, I'm afraid.
I do most of my shopping online
We don't have Amazon in Russia, but we have Ozon, which is basically the same thing. My card info is just saved there, and most of the things are on there with free next-day delivery. I can literally click a single button and get the thing on the next day.
If they get hacked (which is pretty unlikely, but not impossible) and it turns out that they just store all card details in plain text, it still won't be an issue - locking a card and issuing a new one to the same account literally takes about 10 clicks in my bank's mobile app.
Lately I've been trying to buy less from a large marketplace like Ozon and support independent online stores instead. It's certainly less convenient, mainly because of the delivery - it usually takes longer or you have to pay money for it (usually not a lot though, around 200₽/2€/$2.13). Still though, unless it's something urgent or something that I have to look at in person to evaluate, I find it easier to just click a button and get the thing a few days later than to specifically spend an hour going to the store. Regardless, I quite enjoy the feeling of waiting for a delivery.
There's the same shipping issue in the US. Many businesses will have their own website to sell products, but also list their items on Amazon. When you buy directly from them, it can take over a week to receive your package, but the same product on Amazon arrives the next day.
That's because Amazon wants it to the customer quickly. My old job had an Amazon store, when we processed the orders they went into the group of "rush" orders, which meant they generally got shipped inside of 48 hours.
I order from Amazon as little as possible and often just use them as a search engine for a product then buy it elsewhere, including in a local physical storefront. I prefer shopping in person, but I'm also old enough to have ordered out of physical, mail-order catalogs, mail-order ads in magazines, etc. and understand that online/remote shopping has its place and Amazon isn't the first to have such a large presence in the remote shopping sphere (see Sears Catalog for the largest historical example).
I'm also aware that much of my hobbies would range from impossible to much smaller in scope without online shopping. Even in a large metropolitan area I currently live in there simply isn't a market large enough for a storefront to carry many of the incredibly niche items I use.
I only buy online things that I simply cannot buy at a physical store. Since I live in my country's capital there are enough stores nearby that this is a pretty rare occurrence. My latest online orders were some very specific motorcycle jeans (from the manufacturer) and a few books that were not immediately available here (from Amazon).
I don't really like ordering online because deliveries can be a mess and it's just not the same as actually holding/seeing the product in person. I'd say I'm doing "hybrid shopping". I'll search and compare things online, look at reviews etc to pick a product. Then I'll use a large shopping portal/aggregator website to find the best price at a physical store a reasonable distance away, to go and physically purchase the item.
And yeah I too enjoy purchasing the item and as soon as the transaction is complete having it at hand ready to use instead of waiting any crazy number of days.
I just want to rebut this point a little (not invalidating your insight or experience at all) but, for me, ordering for delivery means I've have it in my hands quicker than if I went and got it physically. Planning a shopping excursion is usually a task in and of itself, with other things that need doing and limited time off to do it, while ordering is easy (too easy for many) and while it takes time to get to you, that's time that you'll be doing other things.
If going to brick and mortar stores works better, then excellent! Please keep doing that, as brick and mortar stores are important to communities, and doing what works best for you is important to you personally.
Well experiences will vary according to how and where people live. I can get most things on the day because I live downtown in a large city and have both a car and a motorcycle, get off work while the stores are still open and I don't mind spending the time it takes.
Also, if I'm not at home I'll have to get down to the hub to pick up my order anyway, "leave it at the porch" is not an option here.
Others live differently and make different choices and I get how online shopping can be a much more enjoyable and practical experience for them.
As an aside I've ordered some things to be delivered at my now-former workplace so I'll be doing the Where's My Package treasure hunt soon enough :)
I do the majority of my shopping online because it's easier than driving to a store, finding parking, going inside, finding that they don't have what I need, going to a different store, waiting in line behind an old lady trying to use expired coupons and pay with a check, etc. Just clicking and having it show up at my door at some point is amazing, and most of the time, cheaper than going through all of that above experience to get it from a store.
There are certainly times that I don't order online, though. I go and do my own grocery shopping, because I want to gauge the quality of the available produce and make adjustments if necessary. I go to lumber yards and pick up my own lumber to avoid a delivery fee. I pick up my own takeout to avoid the jacked up prices and delivery fees from those services.
I have no issues storing my CC with trusted services. If it gets compromised, I'll just call the CC company to let them know and they take care of it. My address and CC information is also auto-fillable using Bitwarden, so I usually don't have to fill any of that out manually. Amazon delivers quickly in my area, so 90% of things I need arrive at my door within a day or two. And my favorite part of this whole thing is that I can obtain what I want/need without spending a lot of time to get it, which tends to be my most limited resource nowadays.
Let me fully admit that these days I live in a larger city that has more stores, or at least it's not too terribly difficult for me to get to a large city that has the goods I often want.
I say this because I actually WILL check 5 or 6 different stores to find one item- so yes driving, parking, maybe gassing up along the way... those are things I will do to avoid ordering online.
That's quite some dedication against online shopping. It's nice that we have choices when it comes to shopping. You value security, ideals around spending, and "immediately" having the item in your hands after purchase so you buy in stores. I value time, total cost and variety of item selection so I shop online. It's nice that we both have options that work for us.
I like looking at physical stores, but there's simply more selection online than anything you're going to find outside of massive cities, and the payment experience is simply better. Cash is disgusting and annoying, and even paying with a card tends to involve talking to someone, waiting in line and a million prompts on the payment terminal.
Payment is low friction online if you securely save your details in either a password manager with autofill, or a wallet integrated with your OS. Half the time I can press an Apple Pay button, double tap the side button to let it scan my face, and then the payment goes through...with billing addresses and contact info already filled. Otherwise, if there's a credit card field, it asks to autofill my saved cards. Far less friction than the obnoxious in-person cash register experience.
My ideal brick-and-mortar experience is being able to just take things off the shelf, maybe scan them on my phone, and pay online without having to queue up or talk to anyone. Self-checkout kiosks aren't quite there, because there's still a bottleneck.
I am a serial online shopper and have found it exceptionally useful. It allows me to explore all of my hobbies and interests with the only real limiter being finances.
I enjoy insect taxidermy, I would never be able to find unmounted A1 grade butterfly specimens on the highstreet. I make soap sometimes, I wouldn't know where to start looking for caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) in any decent quantity within a 20 mile radius. I love gardening, I've been able to find some exciting varieties of heirloom seeds and fruit bushes that aren't at my local garden centers, although I give them plenty of love too. It's great for specialist ingredients; I am endlessly grateful that I can just order a jar of cassareep online to make pepperpot with rather than having to make a 3 hour round trip on public transport to find a Caribbean grocer.
I use a cashback website wherever I can and have clawed back around £500 over the years, probably a bit more from using a credit card which gives me a small percentage of cashback on purchases too. I still support my local shops and go to physical stores for groceries but for stuff that's higher up on the pyramid of needs, online covers an awful lot of my shopping habits. I try to be conscious of my data being passed on to third parties but frankly I think they'd be too confused by all my odd purchases to know what to do with it.
I'm less worried about frivolous spending habits because I budget carefully every month and am in the habit of checking my statements regularly, especially before making a big purchase.
I do everything I can to avoid amazon, but am willing to order directly from the vendor's website instead.
It tends to be not as quick, can vary in price (sometimes less, sometimes more), but at least I'm actually giving the money to the person who made the product. Further I'm a lot more certain I'll actually get what I ordered and not some crappy knockoff.
I still rarely use amazon for the occasional item that I can't really find elsewhere or is too small to bother with or in the rare case it's a time thing (although even then I don't find amazon to be that much faster). Mostly the only way I give them my money is I rent movies through them when it's not on a streaming service I have.
For those of us with niche hobbies, sometimes buying online is the cheapest option, or even the only option depending on location. I enjoy building model kits (no Gundams, but more mecha musume type kits), and most of the time, even accounting for shipping fees and taxes (inevitable on international shipments here in Canada), it often ends up being cheaper to order from Japan than buying it locally, if that same kit even makes it to a local shop. Most of my kits are either from Kotobukiya or from smaller Chinese companies, and the two places in the nearest city that stock model kits only stock Bandai kits. Same idea with some of the parts that my partner needs for his game console restoration hobby - those little electronic bits are often cheaper on AliExpress, and most of the other sites selling them are sourcing from Ali anyway.
I'm not really bothered by how long it takes a delivery to arrive. When I order my kits from Japan I just send them by boat and they arrive ~45 days later. It's the cheapest option and I'd rather do that than pay more for it to arrive faster. My main issue with deliveries is just making sure I'm awake when it arrives, since I work night shift and sleep until mid-afternoon. The post office holds a lot of stuff for us (my partner is also on the same schedule as me), and the couriers here have very predictable schedules, so that helps.
I avoid Amazon as much as possible and would rather buy locally if I can. The nearest city is half an hour away which is reasonable to travel since we regularly go that way anyway (for groceries, my plants and plant-adjacent items, overall anything that needs to be bought in person), but it's a different story for my family which is much more rural than we are and an hour+ away from anything even resembling a small city. While there are shops there, Amazon can be more reliable and faster for a lot of stuff they need. In remote communities here in Canada (think the territories and very rural Newfoundland type areas), they're very reliant on Amazon because it's just easier/faster than traveling hours to a shop and maybe not even finding what you need. Amazon is also, to my knowledge, one of the only places that doesn't upcharge for delivery to the territories, which is a major advantage to people living there.
It's definitely easier to get carried away shopping online, and that can spell trouble for people who are prone to impulse purchases. Shopping addiction is very real and for a lot of people it started online and spiraled from there. Making sure you're only buying things you really need and that you can budget properly helps a lot on that front.
As for safety, the one time I had my credit card number stolen wasn't even linked to an online purchase, but to an in-person one (at least I'm fairly sure it was, since I didn't use that card for a week after going to that location and then ended up with a fraudulent charge). I noticed it right away since I get transaction alerts to my phone, locked the card immediately to stop other transactions, and called my bank right away. It was resolved in maybe ten minutes at most, and I got a new card a few days later. If I hadn't noticed it that soon though, it could have been much worse.
Yeah, I find that there are a lot of addicted shoppers these days. I find a lot of the tactics that are used by online stores these days to be sickening. There are many examples of online stores that have "gamified" their websites and apps to make as many addicts as possible.
My family used to say that one of my aunts was absolutely a shop-a-holic.
But more than that, I watched perhaps one too many shows where you has a girl from a rich family, and she would buy random shit because "Daddy's credit card"
There's a lot of ways that it's too easy to just put stuff on credit card and lose track of spending- that horrible behavior is arguably even encouraged. It's beyond the scope of this discussion, but that leads into credit scores and Americans being notorious for having a HUGE percentage of credit card debt. I've done my damnedest to avoid it.
When you start paying more attention to it, you really realise how bad it's gotten. I see so many sites nowadays with those popups that are like "someone in X country just bought this item!" or huge timers saying a sale is ending soon (it never really ends, though) to pressure you into making impulse decisions. That sort of thing personally just turns me off from buying there entirely, but far too many people fall for it, sometimes without really realising it.
Ah, you sorta caught me on one thing.
I used Amazon as my example, but for one of my hobbies the big-name vendors are all online, and otherwise do various events in America... but unless you live near one of the places they do these events, it's much easier to just order online.
Yeah, in situations like that, online ordering just becomes a lot easier. In a way that also makes said hobby more accessible to people that aren't near the areas where events are held, though, so I don't view that as a bad thing.
I do find online shopping convenient. Most things I buy online are not sold in physical stores, and when they are sold near me they are overpriced and lacking options. I'm not even in a small town.
Generally speaking, I only buy things online if it's something I either can't get in person or if the price is dramatically better. Last weekend I was at Microcenter and they sell soldering flux in a syringe for something like $12. But earlier this week I bought five of them from Aliexpress for about half that price. I also bought three LCD screens, for which there are no local distributors. This is usually the case for my occasional electronics hobby.
I grew up poor (and still am, probably), so I'm very sensitive to prices; I frequently trade my time for improvements for price or quality. I shop semi-frequently at grocery stores that are miles from where I live. The grocery stores around me sell apples for an average of $2.49/lb. Going further out will get me apples that are $1.49/lb and are notably better in quality. There's actually a local store that I can get Cosmic Crisps for $0.99/lb, but they've got extremely inconvenient hours.
I very rarely buy food online, because it's usually a terrible deal. Here in the US online food shopping is either Amazon which generally has high prices for grocery, or there's third- or second-party options which are run by middlemen who not only give you an inflated price for the goods, but they charge you additional fees on top of it. The one major exception I have is Butler Soy Curls, which I buy directly from the manufacturer. They're extremely scarce in the markets around me, and buying directly in bulk halves the price.
Personally, the "there's so much to choose from" is one of my biggest complaints about online shopping. Last month when my mom and I did a big order on Amazon, I had to push some items off to the end because we'd have to spend so much time going through all the options.
Touch-screen gloves? We had to buy a bulk pack of cotton ones because they only came in bulk. My mom pointed out some that were just one or two pair, and I had to point out they were specifically winter winter touch-sceeen gloves.
Notepads? Had to measure the dimensions of our notepads, and open listings to check the sizes and page count of the pads.
Snow booties for our dog? Lots of options for both winter/snow and rain, so took a bit to find some.
New cables for our phone chargers? My mom originally added a pack of two full sets (cable and adapter) to the cart, and ordered multiples since she missed the fact it was already multiple. I found some that were JUST cables because we already have probably 10 adapters, and had higher reviews.
Scissors to replace her missing cosmetic scissors? Had to use a ruler to measure our kitchen scissors to show that 8 inches was WAY too big. And on that note, I don't think the scissors we ordered ever actually arrived.
Trying to sort through ALL the options was just... Painful. Even before checking for fraudulent companies and check reviews for product quality, first we had to find listings for the products that actually fit what we needed. Looking up "women's winter gloves" brought up all sorts of options like skiing, sports, touch-screen compatible, and... It was just too much. I looked at the first page of results, and just decided it was too much of a headache to even bother.
Big selections can be a double-edged sword. At physical stores, it's so easy to buy more basic things since you don't need to root through 100 different options with overly detailed descriptions and names. You can just pick it up, check it's the right size and is what you're looking for, and add it to your cart.
One thing I like about Amazon which I wish that more online retailers would implement is that they have an AR viewer with many of the items they sell scanned. A lot of the items have important dimensions but they aren't usually something you think of that way, and personally speaking I am absolutely terrible at estimating lengths. AR lets you see it, to scale, as if it were really there. You're still missing touch, of course, but it's much better than simple 2D pictures.
About the only things i shop in person are clothes and groceries. Everything else is online. Why?. Much better variety (Australia is pretty bad in that regard) and payment options online. With hours i work its difficult unless i want to wait til weekend to visit physical stores in person.
Overall I think im more of an in-person shopper than you, but agreed .. especially grocery (for quality) and clothing (for fit) in person.
About not supporting Amazon, there is nothing, absolutely nothing me, you, anyone as a person can do. Individuals can't do shit against this. The same way that we can't avoid climate change by taking shorter showers, recycling and everyone planting a tree.
I am a communist and I buy communist material from Amazon lol
The only way to lower Bezos influence is to expropriate everything from him. And the only way to save the planet is to stop living for profit.
And we can only do that if we overcome capitalism, because as soon as Bezos is gone, there will be another one the next day.
Here in Brazil Amazon is strong, but still mostly books and some other things. For almost everything, MercadoLivre is stronger. In some places they can deliver in the same day.
Shein is for clothes, specially for women.
I prefer shopping online instead of going to a store simply because I don't want salesperson chasing me pushing products and there are much more options online anyway.
I don't think I saw this mentioned in the other comments but -- online shopping (and other delivery options like grocery delivery) can be vital for disabled people. Even when you're not strictly housebound, if you've got issues with fatigue or weakness you have a limited amount of energy you can spend each day. Going to shop at physical stores requires a lot more energy than online shopping, and often that energy is the difference between getting other important tasks done. I live in a big city with great public transport, so I have no shortage of access -- but in addition to factors others here have mentioned I often just haven't had the energy to spare on shopping in-person unless there wasn't a good alternative.
For the most part I figure if I can't find it in a store nearby I probably don't really need it. There are occasional exceptions to this policy, mainly shoes, but I can probably count on one hand the amount of online purchases I've made in the last few years. I like encouraging having physical locations to buy things nearby, employees tend to be paid better than delivery drivers (especially true for local stores), and I like being able to see what I'm paying for before I purchase it. I'm not saying I never buy things online but I do try and really prioritize not buying things online if I can help it.
All my payments are done via national inter-bank micropayments system here: I just click the button that takes me to the platform page where I enter 6 digits code generated by my bank's app and then I confirm the transaction, either with pin or without it if the transaction is below a certain threshold. I can use this payment method as well doing regular "physical" shopping and it's quite convenient.
As for the online shopping: overall technically it's good but there are other issues. Nowadays every store here offers so-called "premium" service where they offer cheaper or free delivery options (if you ofc meet the requirements) so I truly despise that. If you won't pay for it, the delivery options are quite pricey or even limited - e.g. the parcel machine is not the closest one or you can't even have it as an option.
My preferred way is to order online at a local shop, and pick it up in store. I get the huge selection, the stores in my neighborhood stay alive, and I don't have to deal with deliveries (I'm never at home so I have to go pick them up in a semi-postoffice, or chase down some neighbor who maybe received it (bugging them in the process, twice!)). And since I visit the store I do get to talk to the people there, and see whatever they picked out which is noteworthy. Everyone wins.