Shopping doesn't suck. Being picky sucks. If I want gloves I go to the discount store and buy a 5-pack of the nitrile dipped cotton, the half-leather or the insulated rubber ones depending on what I need them for, no existential crisis whatsoever. I suspect the endless options for comparable products that we can access on the internet has made us more picky than we otherwise would be.
Shopping Sucks Now
31–40 of 230 posts
Re: Shopping Sucks Now
#32When I was living in the PNW and realized I direly needed gloves, I just hit up a few of the department stores downtown until I found some that met my criteria. Which are probably similar to those of this author, I wanted some that looked cute, had a conductive patch on the finger so I could use my phone without taking them off, would fit on my long hands with long fingernails, and weren’t super expensive gloves desi…
I think the key to the article can be found in this passage:
> [T]he problem is that now, somewhat suddenly, perfect knowledge of the perfect glove, for you specifically, exists, if you simply do enough research.
When you're shopping in a physical store, you have no expectation that you're going to find the absolute, one-and-only perfect glove (or whatever) in the world for you. Even in the largest stores, you understand that their shelf space is limited, and therefore you set your expectations not to find the absolute, one-and-only perfect glove in the world for you, but to find a glove that's good enough for your needs. As long as you can find something that meets your requirements at an acceptable cost, you come away satisfied. Maybe not thrilled, but satisfied.
The infinite variety of online shopping tells us to set our expectations higher than that. Suddenly every thing we buy has to be the perfect version of that thing for us -- because if it isn't, that means we are lazy dullards who lacked the research skills and/or wherewithal to go out and find the perfect version. Instead of it being the fault of the shop that we had to settle for good enough, suddenly it's our fault.
The only way out of this trap is to realize that there is no such thing as the perfect product, that even the works of the finest craftspeople are going to have flaws and blemishes on them, and that good enough really is, you know, good enough.
Or, in other words, that happiness is not a glove that you can buy.
Re: Shopping Sucks Now
#33Something that has been lost is genuine reviews. First you have all the sponsored reviews and then all the equally worthless "I don't know how to use it so it's junk" or "it never arrived" 1 star reviews. And so many "review" sites look like they've been procedurally generated then SEO optimized and filled with ads.
Currently I only trust reddit for "genuine" reviews. Seems like Amazon reviews these days are gamed to the max. Once companies figure this out and reddit has a high degree of astroturf it will be impossible to find out what normal, unbiased (as in don't have an agenda) humans think about a product.
I suspect that once that fails, the next step is going to be having to join the Discord server or whatever chat-group exists for that niche. Then asking for a recommendation from some weirdo whose super obsessed with gloves or whatever. The future is weird.
Re: Shopping Sucks Now
#34Shopping sucks less now. Wider selection and more transparent information means that you can make a better choice today. If the author stops looking for the absolute best item, they'll find that it's a great world for the satisficing consumer.
Re: Shopping Sucks Now
#35Faced with the situation described in this article many times in recent years, I've come to appreciate the value of the wholesale buyer at traditional retailers.
While obviously there are a variety of incentives involved, the buyer has evaluated a variety of products and found ones that they not only expect to be profitable for them, but that are also something they expect their customers to like and want to buy. Also, it's very unlikely they'll risk selling counterfeits. The majority of Amazon sellers seem to optimize exclusively for profitability, and make up for it by gaming the system with fake reviews and the like.
Re: Shopping Sucks Now
#36first world problems
No doubt, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
Re: Shopping Sucks Now
#37When I was living in the PNW and realized I direly needed gloves, I just hit up a few of the department stores downtown until I found some that met my criteria. Which are probably similar to those of this author, I wanted some that looked cute, had a conductive patch on the finger so I could use my phone without taking them off, would fit on my long hands with long fingernails, and weren’t super expensive gloves desi…
The problem is that even in big cities, real world shops are disappearing. This year I wanted to buy a TV, and wanted to see them in real life to judge colors/brightness levels, and shockingly, in London, I found just one place which had like 10 TVs from the leading brands. I'm sure there are a few more, but I wasn't able to locate them using google, or walking the main shopping streets. I remember shops 10 years ago…
Brick and mortar shops can't stop you from coming in and finding the perfect item, then buying it online to save money. I bought an office chair recently and didn't feel confident picking one without trying chairs out in person. The chair I settled on was $100 cheaper online
Re: Shopping Sucks Now
#38Anyone working on a Trader Joes meets Amazon? That curates maybe 1-3 versions of things, largely eliminating paradox of choice. I guess Costco is kind of a bulk version of that... Also I've been increasingly interested in just buying things once and having them last a decade+, ideally a lifetime (less waste). But this takes a lot of research. Trader Joes does a good job of curating groceries and I've come to trust th…
Hilarious. Aren't you basically advocating for a planned economy? Just with a corporate, instead of a government, bureaucracy.
Not OP, but I would say no. The corporation is subject to competition. If their curated products suck eventually people will figure it out and they'll go out of business. Do you consider Trader Joe's a planned economy?
Re: Shopping Sucks Now
#39When I was living in the PNW and realized I direly needed gloves, I just hit up a few of the department stores downtown until I found some that met my criteria. Which are probably similar to those of this author, I wanted some that looked cute, had a conductive patch on the finger so I could use my phone without taking them off, would fit on my long hands with long fingernails, and weren’t super expensive gloves desi…
I think this might be the key.
It's not that the internet provides too wide a selection, it's that it fails to provide some very basic pieces of information.
How does the product feel in your hand? Is it soft? Does it feel durable? Does the stitching look neat, or haphazard and frizzy?
When we evaluate a product in person, we make all of these assessments without even thinking about them.
Re: Shopping Sucks Now
#40Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1036/
It is from 2012 by the way.