As I have written about before, our household has embraced online shopping. When the kidlets need new swim suits, it is off to Amazon dot com. Once we bought a half wheel of parmigiano regianno from Amazon – yes, the Canada Post dude carried 20 lbs of parmesan cheese up the walk to our front door.
Costco is another retailer who has a fabulous online shopping experience. What have I bought from online shopping at Costco? Well, a thousand live ladybugs is one thing. And a massive bucket of laundry soap – why would I carry a 50 pound bucket of soap home when Costco will deliver it for free?
I have also previously confessed my passion for online shopping for handcrafted leather and waxed canvas bags and briefcases.
You can’t really go wrong with buying leather bags and briefcases online, especially if you are buying top quality gear such as Marlondo Leather, Bexar Goods, or Koch Leathers. That is in part because they have such great webpages or Facebook pages to communicate with you about their products, but also because there is a significant secondary market for leather briefcases. Who knew, right?
Another item that is great for online shopping is modern furniture. You can quickly and easily look at what brands and what styles of furniture the retailer has before going into the store and doing the real-life test of the furniture.
Once in store you can lounge on the couches and sit on the chairs. You can even lay down on the beds in store and fall asleep! You can’t do that when you are shopping online.
However, the fact is, not everything is well suited for online shopping. I spend more time returning shoes to the post office than my wife actually spends wearing shoes she purchases online.
If I ask why she doesn’t just buy “the right size” the first time I get that withering look. Apparently there is a unique language dedicated to shoe manufacturers – some fit “according to size” while others “fit large”. And others? Yes, some “fit small”.
The bottom line, we will continue to shop online for all sorts of things including leather bags, swim suits, and ladybugs. And yes, much to my chagrin, my wife will continue her online shopping for shoes.