[img]139|left|||no_popup[/img] Lately I’ve been doing all of my relaxing by knitting. Whenever the baby is asleep, I pick up my needles, yarn, and go for it. Ambitiously, I decided to knit my little one an entire farm. Yes, that’s right — a full-fledged farm for my city-born babe.
When it’s done, it’ll include quite a few animals, a barn, a fence, and other accessories for playtime. After getting the knitting requirements together, I had a long list for a whole lot of yarn. And in my online knitting groups, the members extolled the virtues of shopping at local yarn shops, to keep these soon-to-be-relics in business. Like independent bookstores of twenty years ago, I assume the local yarn shop is an endangered species.
All excited, I set out for the three local shops in Los Angeles bright and early one Monday morning – only to discover none was open on Monday. Tuesday late morning was the earliest I could translate my eagerness into starting a project. A little less enthusiastic the next day, I set again out to buy my supplies. At the first store, there were shelves and shelves of unorganized yarns, nary a price tag in sight. After asking about several products, which the owner thought they might have in stock, I left. It would take nearly an hour to search for my yarns. With childcare hours at a premium, I abandoned the first store empty-handed, braved the death-defying parking lot and made my way over to the second store.
Here It Was Easer to Figure Out
The next shop was far better organized, and everything sported a price tag, but what they’d said over the phone about what they had in stock, was not in stock once I got there. I inquired about ordering what I needed, thinking a big bulk order would solve my dilemma. The owner said it would take several weeks, and I’d have to pay full price — no discount on the horizon for such a large order.
I didn’t even bother with the third store. Driving is not nearly as much fun as shopping.
So I came home and finished where I probably should have started, the World Wide Web. A few clicks later, I had my yarn order placed for everything I’d need, at a thirty percent discount, with free shipping, and no sales tax. (Yes, I’ve heard of use tax).
A couple of days later I opened my box like it was Christmas and had everything in hand to start.
Sure, yarn is a more obscure product, but it’s the same story time and again no matter what I want to buy. I bought my last two strollers on-line because I could get what I wanted in one or two days, free shipping, no tax — and I live within walking distance of three baby stores. Even my last television came by way of the United Parcel Service. I even buy most of my shoes online. They always have my size, and I have them in hand (or on foot, as it were) the next day.
The Gap Is Gaping
I’ve tried local stores, again and again, but they never meet the online price – not even close. In an economy like this, who can turn down the lower online prices? The strollers were hundreds less. Same savings for a new car seat. The television was over one hundred and fifty dollars cheaper. Intellectually I know that there’s a logical reason for the surcharge in the brick-and-mortar stores. They have an overhead of course, not to mention paying for store employees, no matter how unhelpful. But I’d prefer to keep some cash in my pocket. (Who doesn’t?)
I estimate my online savings are more than a thousand dollars a year. So again, and again, I type in my credit card, and the next day (or the day after that) my bounty arrives – no muss, no fuss, no waiting, no lugging stuff from my car into the house.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of a local shop, I really do. I like to walk down to the main drag and window shop or browse from time to time. I like looking at the pretty, multi-colored awnings and imagining local business owners doing well. I like the street improvements the local chambers of commerce bring with newly planted boulevards bisected with palm trees, or even better, drought tolerant native plants. But the price and availability of stores seems to get more limited every time I need something. Moreover, there’s little help from clerks, so no local, friendly expertise and advice is there to justify the additional cost. There isn’t even superior information to be gleaned from store displays. Who doesn’t love the endless ratings and information one can get from online shopping – at your fingertips, twenty-four hours a day?
There’s something to not being treated like a criminal that’s appealing as well. The last time I bought ear buds, a store employee (whom it took me forever to find to open the locked cabinet), hermetically sealed the nine-dollar item in a clear box so I could continue to shop without stealing. The last time I went to one of those electronics mega stores? There were more employees assigned to “loss prevention” then assigned to help you choose a product. All I could think is, Why would I steal it if I don’t even know what it is or what features it has?
I know I’m the reason the local business owner may go the way of the dinosaur. But in the face of huge discounts, massive selection, and near instant delivery, I’m like that fateful asteroid in the sky.
Click and order or brick-and-mortar that is the question? I say, fire up that mouse, I’m ready to shop.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender-biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. A reformed lawyer, she is a fulltime novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com
