“My online splurges are costing a fortune!”
Easy delivery makes online shopping painless, says Pam Richardson. But it pays to keep your wits about you!
Seven in the morning, and I’m hardly dressed for shopping… Shocking pink, snuggly dressing gown, past-their-best pyjamas and wildly wayward hair. I wouldn’t want to be seen in public, but am happily ensconced in front of the computer browsing… and spending.
It has rained relentlessly for the past few days and the view from the patio doors has convinced me I need another water butt: a much bigger one! The assortment of watering cans and washing up bowls littering my courtyard is more Heath Robinson than William Robinson, and every container is full to the brim. It’s clearly time to act.
I know from experience that trying to get a full-sized water butt into the back of my car is like trying to squeeze a well-padded, slightly tipsy auntie into a taxi after Christmas dinner – a delicate manoeuvre. So buying online, with its promise to deliver direct to my door, is a real bonus. And because I need a water butt for the allotment too, I buy a second one at the tap of a computer key.
Because this one will ultimately have to be stuffed into my car, I settle for a slimline design. Congratulating myself on this foresight, I press BUY, before realising how easy it has been to double what I actually set out to spend.
Water treatment discs are easy enough to pack into the car, but the ones I prefer are harder to find, so back to the website to get them. To reduce the postage cost per item, I buy three… oops see what I did there? Nematodes, too, are bought and scheduled for delivery, all at the click of a mouse. More doubling up. Trebling up.
I blame most of my online shopping excesses on the ‘easy delivery factor’. I’m not disputing that online shopping is perfectly practical for sensible bulk buys of compost, bareroot trees and bulky long-handled pruners, hoes and rakes, but with home delivery every horticultural delusion becomes possible. Full-size patio sets, woven fence panels, gnarled vines in gigantic terracotta pots? No problem. Just add a sack barrow to the order while you’re there.
My real passion is plants, but here there’s an even greater risk of getting carried away. My latest obsession started quite innocently late one Saturday evening. I was sipping a red wine and answering an email from my sister who lives in Florida bemoaning the fact spring bulbs don’t do well in the high humidity and heat of her part of the USA. Inspired, I thought I’d flick through some online bulb stockists to buy a few for my own garden. Every picture seduced me into adding more to the basket.
One plump, brown tulip bulb may look much like any other at the garden centre, but on screen, in full flower with high resolution colour, I wanted, and almost ordered, every single cultivar!
Late night is not the time for sensible shopping. Take my pop-up growhouse: the blurb said it just needed a 3m (10ft) level surface to sit on. Did I have 3m of level space? No. Did I measure? No. It was much easier to sit and press BUY than trudge outdoors with a torch and a tape measure.
My most expensive online purchase is due for delivery any day, and it certainly wouldn’t fit in the car! This time I did my research and my preparation. It’s a combi shed/greenhouse and it’s everything an online purchase should be: well-considered, useful and, most importantly, without regrets! ✿
I press BUY before realising how easy it has been to double what I set out to spend