Why has shopping become so difficult?
We live in a time when shopping is supposed to be effortless — just “one click away.”
But if you ask me, shopping for anything has never been more exhausting, and we are all partly to blame.
In Days of Yore Before The Internet, you went to a nearby store where a fast-talking salesman escorted you around, blabbing about different products for 45 minutes.
Eventually, he shoved a model at you that was “a deal” and “a steal” if you bought it there and then, cash “on the barrel.” You said “yes” because who knew where to get a better deal, without visiting 10 more stores?
But nowadays buying even a fly swatter is a life’s mission because we all want to get the very best fly swatter at the very best price, with the very best performance, reliability, versatility and fly kill-ability.
For starters, you have to research your product online even if you plan to buy at a store. That means scrolling through 283 reviews on sites like Consumer Reports, Consumer Retorts and Consumer Cavorts, along with Wirecutter, Lawncutter, Liarcutter and best-furnitureandkitchenappliances@ gunsandtoys.com.
Let’s say you want a shower head. Do you want the best inexpensive budget shower head, the best premium luxury shower head, or the best premium budget luxury one? Each will have its own separate ratings for every last element, including whether the product is scent free, soap free, gluten free, fat free, animal free and vegetable free, as well as whether the parts come from China, and are durable, usable, unlosable and reusable.
How about a mattress? Do you want the best mattress for back sleepers, for side sleepers, for stomach sleepers, head sleepers, or suspended-from-the-ceiling yoga sleepers? Do you prefer the best “Canadian Cooling Foam” mattress, the finest “luxury hybrid pillowtop” mattress, or a “latex graphite copper-infused” elite $46,000 hybrid that’s so expensive it’s meant for admiring, not sleeping.
But even when you’ve finally decided exactly which product you want, then bought it, you’ve just begun.
If you buy it online, whatever amount you’ve paid will prove $4 short of what’s needed for free shipping. To top up your bill for no-cost delivery, they’ll offer various $15 accessories you don’t need and will never use.
For instance, if you’re buying a TV remote, they will offer you a TV remote holder, or a remote finder, or remote cleaner fluid with a Special Deluxe No-static Remote Cleaning Rag. If it’s a shower head, they’ll try to sell you a matching shower cap, or matching shower tap, or matching bathroom.
If you’re purchasing at the store, they’ll let you pick up and self-deliver your 90-inch, 150-kilogram HDTV. But they’ll also try to sell you an extended warranty at half the price of the TV that warranty-rating consumer sites usually advise you not to buy. That’s because most warranties get used so rarely that if you buy one it’s wise to try buying a second warranty that pays you something if you don’t use the first warranty. Anyone for a warranty warranty?
Once you’ve actually bought your item, along with your accessories and your warranty(s), you probably think your shopping spree is over. But even going home with the product is no longer the end of today’s shopping experience.
That’s because ever since the moment you first looked up the word “fridge” online, you’ve been inundated by ads from 100 companies based everywhere from the Aleutian Islands to Zanzibar, all still trying to sell you their brand of fridge.
This includes never-ending email ads from the store you bought it from, which is eager to sell you the identical fridge immediately because they obviously know people need two or more seven-foot fridges in every kitchen.
You will also be inundated by online requests to rate the product you bought, or considered buying, as well as rate the place you bought it and the salesman you bought it from, with questions like:
a) Did you find the service super, superior, inferior, insipid, or insulting ?
b) Did you find the lighting restful, relaxing, annoying, or soul-destroying?
If you’re unlucky, you might also get emails from various fraudsters who hacked into your web search when you looked up a $99 tiny TV. They will send you an online delivery invoice for a $12,999 OLED TV with a Dolby surround sound system that is arriving at your door the very next day — and that you have supposedly been billed for and prepaid on your credit card.
Of course, you can always cancel the supposed delivery by filling in the online refund form they’ve attached, then entering your card information and password so they can empty your account by dawn.
The good news is that after all your weeks of research and rating-weighting you will probably be delighted with whatever you bought and use it contentedly for the next 36 months, when your extended warranty expires exactly three days before your product does.
The bad news is you will continue to receive ads and rating requests for whatever you bought for the rest of your life.