"Old" fashioned shopping

I wanted to share a little snippet of my thoughts with all of my supportive readers. It dawned on me that if you have been reading my posts for the past year, you must like what I say about and how I say it. (Warning, this post contains useless rant)

This online shopping fiasco ticks me off a little bit. For people like me, who aren’t 100% confident in the system, especially in SA, and don’t feel like giving some else the chance to mess their order up, I prefer shopping at the actual store where you can feel, sniff, lick, cuddle and test the actual product/s.

Since online stores have firmly been put in place, I am finding most often than I’d like, that there is scarcely anything on the shelves these days. After browsing through categories, finding what I like, driving to the store with cold hard cash to purchase it, I get unbearably irritated when it’s not there and the assistants say “but you get it online”. Do you honestly think that after going to all that effort, I’ll leave the store a happier person because I now have to wait 3 days for the bloody thing to be sent to me!? No…just no!

There is a point to all of this.

I was window shopping at The Grove Mall in Pretoria and popped into the Edgars store. I knew exactly what I wanted. Gosh’s Matte top coat. I saw it on Edgars’ new online store but didn’t feel like paying shipping fees for one small bottle of polish (this is also how online stores catch you out). I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the polish in the cosmetics section. I grabbed it and walked quite briskly to the payment counter, clenching the bottle tightly in my hands (I was picturing one of those black Friday scenes when there’s only 3 products but 20 ladies want it. Dramatic I know). I paid and left. It was such a quick and painless experience.

This made my day and restored my faith in stores in general. High five to Edgars! I really hope they continue to stock products in Malls etc. and don’t rely on online sales too much. I can picture sharing stories with my great grandchildren about the times we used to use actual money and shop at actual stores. Savor the days of old fashioned shopping, they seem to becoming scarce.