It’s all about quick and easy shopping.
I buy a lot of the things I need for my home and garden on Amazon.com. It’s gotten to the point that the UPS truck is at my place several times a week to drop off packages.
For a while, I felt kind of guilty about that. After all, the Wenatchee area where I live, has plenty of shopping opportunities. I should be supporting the economy by shopping locally.
Trouble is, the things I need aren’t always easy to find. Or they might take several stops to track down. Or — worse yet — I may simply forget to look for something I need while I’m out and remember a day or two later when I actually need it.
I went nuts looking for this $3.25 item in stores around town. Found it in five minutes on Amazon.
Here’s an example. I needed an irrigation fitting that would enable me to connect my automatic chicken waterer to my garden irrigation system. The idea is that when the timer starts up the irrigation system twice a day (for 10 minutes each time), it would pressurize the waterer’s water feed and top off the chicken’s water trough, which is shared by my barn cats. The irrigation hose already runs right past the waterer. Why run another hose across the garden entrance? One fitting and 10 minutes of effort and I don’t have to worry about water for my chickens or cats for the rest of the summer.
One fitting. You think I’d be able to track it down on one of my many visits to Home Depot or Lowes, right?
Wrong. Try as I might, I couldn’t find what I needed. In any of the four stores I tried.
Then I sat down at my computer and, in less than five minutes had found and ordered exactly what I needed. It would be at my doorstep in two days without any more driving or searching or frustration.
Do you know how many stores I visited, looking for a microwave that would fit on my kitchen’s microwave shelf without looking like it belonged in a dorm room? Home Depot, Lowes, Sears, Save-Mart (the local appliance store), and even Walmart. Basically, every store that sold microwaves. But again, a few minutes on Amazon and I’d narrowed down the search to the ones that fit and matched my other appliances. Then it was just a matter of picking the one I like best. A few days later, it was on my doorstep.
I bought the wrong vacuum cleaner bags for my old ShopVac three times (and returned them three times) before I did an Amazon search, found what I needed, and ordered them. I didn’t even bother trying to find the vacuum cleaner bags for my household vacuum; I just ordered them on Amazon.
I needed ghee — a clarified butter used in Indian cooking. Local supermarkets didn’t have it. Amazon did.
New battery for my Roomba? Where could I possibly find that locally? Found it on Amazon in minutes.
Use this link when you shop at Amazon.com. A tiny percentage of your purchase will be sent to me as a referral fee. It won’t cost you anything extra and you’ll still get the great product selection and service you expect from Amazon.
And I think this is the reason online shopping poses such a threat to brick and mortar stores. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s affordable, and it often comes with free shipping — including return shipping if you decide you don’t like it.
It’s Friday and the UPS guy has been at my home four times (so far) this week. I’m expecting him today with that irrigation fitting. Yesterday, I apologized to him for so many trips down the two miles of gravel road to get to my home. He said he didn’t mind. When I jokingly suggested that it was people like me keeping him employed, he laughed along with me and agreed.
And I’m just happy to be able to save time shopping so I can get more important things done.
Discover more from An Eclectic Mind
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I do nearly all of my shopping online these days, and probably 90% of that is from amazon. I even subscribe to their “Subscribe & Save” program for a bunch of things, including toilet paper, paper towels, other basics that I need regularly. I especially like ordering dog food from amazon.com. I get 35lb bags and it’s so, so handy to have it delivered to my door… free prime shipping.
— I even order my groceries from my local Raley’s around the corner (their e-Cart service) and go pick them up. Optionally I’ll order from Safeway online and have them delivered right to my door. It’s so convenient, saves time, and also helps my back and neck injuries from my car accident years ago (pushing a shopping cart is tough for back or neck problems… and so is carrying grocery bags).
— As much as I absolutely love going to my local farmer’s market (about an 8-minute drive from my home open once a week), I subscribe to “Farm Fresh to You” that delivers local produce to my door at whatever intervals I choose.
— Finding my tiny shoe size in brick and mortar stores is almost impossible, and even if they carry my size (5B or 5C), they usually carry only one pair each in a couple of styles… and they may or may not be ugly. LOL Zappos and other online shoe stores has changed my world. :-)
— I also find incredible bargains and sales online.
— I can’t remember the last time I went clothes shopping. I buy it all online.
— I could keep going but I’ll stop now. LOL
— Can you tell I love shopping online? :-)
Amazon Prime makes it really easy to just order anything I want any time I want. Just ordered a new pair of sunglasses, in fact.
I don’t usually buy clothes online. I’d rather shop for that. But I’m so lazy — when I find something I like, I buy it in a bunch of colors.
I also love shopping with amazon. Prime shipping and a good search bar makes it much simpler than going to a store.
That said, I’d like to hear your opinion on their drone delivery plans. Whether its 100% drone, or if the drone just covers the last part from the main street to house (2 miles of gravel in your case). Would you like to see such a use integrated in the future where the delivery guy hooks your irrigation fitting box up to a drone, which buzzes down the last 2 miles and drops the box at your door?
I don’t like the idea of drone operations at all. As a helicopter pilot, I don’t want to share my airspace with an unmanned vehicle. The idea of dozens or hundreds of them flying around every day terrifies me.