What Do You Always Buy Online?

And what will you always buy in person?

Recently, Nicole and I both learned the hard way that buying shoes online is an endeavor that usually results in failure or at least disappointment.

• I Failed at Buying Shoes That Fit
• Never Buy Shoes Online

As infested as I am with the need to buy, buy, buy, the online shopping cart situation has ratcheted up to levels that I hope will drop to normal once the weather on the East Coast stops being so warm. According to the forecast, that’ll be sometime next week, so my brief spurt of consumerism will come to an end. Still, the online shopping carts loom, full of things that I should not and will not buy because they’re full of things I refuse to purchase online.

There are some people who would gladly give up the pleasure of going to a store in exchange for doing all of their shopping from the privacy of their own home. Online shopping is what’s killing retail, remember? Online shopping is the juggernaut that’s closing the department stores and rendering the institutions you cherished obsolete.

Even if that’s actually true and not just conjecture, for me, there are a few things that I won’t buy online: shoes; bras, most clothing, things that require you to feel them or smell them, books sometimes, things that are very expensive and groceries. Bathing suits used to be on this list until I realized that every bathing suit I’ve purchased in the past few years has been from an online retailer. Via a miracle, they have all fit.

The list of what I will gladly purchase online without a second thought is much more expansive and includes just about everything else one could need to buy: kitty litter, toilet paper, stuff that you could get at a drugstore but could also get via Amazon Prime, socks, underpants. Maybe these things are less fun to buy than the stuff I’d rather buy in person? Or maybe it’s because I like to physically touch the things I’m going to spend money on if I’m going to wear them or read them. Either way, that’s my list. What’s yours?

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