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10 Reasons to Shop Online

Bruce Tognazzini lists 10 Reasons to Not Shop Online on his personal site. I agree with some of the points he makes, but he seems to just be complaining about a few experiences he had at a few online stores.

Anyway, I hold the opposite view… I love shopping online, and if at all possible will shop online rather than at the store in most cases. Here’s why:

1. No Lines
We went to Target last night and bought a cartload of stuff. It was an hour before they closed, so they only had about 5 registers open. We stood in line for at least 7 minutes waiting for a free register.

2. Fast checkout
When we finally got to the checkout, it took another 5 or 8 minutes to get everything checked out and rung up. Sure online you have to enter your shipping info, credit card info, etc, but it’s still not going to take you anywhere near 5 or 8 minutes to fill out a shopping cart checkout page.

3. Little/No human error
Our cashier scanned a few items 3 or 4 times on accident during the checkout. Luckily he caught it and removed the duplicate items from the total, but what if he hadn’t? Or what if he charged twice on purpose? When you’re standing there 8 hours a day getting paid $6.00 an hour there is little motivation to take your job seriously. Online you can see exactly what you are being charged before you enter your credit card info. If there is an error, it’s most likely your own. The computers could still make mistakes due to bad programming, but I still trust a good web site more than some teenager at a checkout line.

4. Faster than going to the store
Bruce says it’s faster to drive to the store, hunt for what you want, wait in line, checkout, load your car, and drive back to your house than to just order something on a web site in your own living room. What? I don’t think so. We were gone shopping for 2 and a half hours the other night. I could have accomplished the same thing online in less than ten minutes. This isn’t counting shipping time of course, which is the only bad thing about shopping online, no instant gratification.

5. Easier to not over-spend
My wife and I got to the checkout line and decided not to get 3 of the items we had in our cart because the total was coming out to be a lot more than we anticipated. Most online shopping cart systems have a real-time total displayed showing you the total of all the items you currently have in your cart, so you know exactly how much you will be spending as you add items to your cart. Also because you’re going to have to wait at least a day to get the item, you don’t buy things on a whim as easily. For instance the candy bars, sodas, and cheap DVD’s they put at all the checkout lines at Target. If a web site offered you a similar item, you wouldn’t buy it because you might not want that item in 2 days. Now I know candy bars and sodas aren’t offered on many web site checkout systems, but similar impulse buys are easier to avoid online in my opinion.

6. No traffic
You don’t have to deal with driving through crowded streets and packed parking lots, hunting for a space, then walking half a mile to the store. Sit in your own house in your own office in your own comfortable chair and order whatever you like. Then it’s delivered right to your house in a few days. You don’t waste gas, don’t have the stress of overcrowded streets, etc. You also don’t have to walk a 5 mile marathon to find stuff like you do in any of the thousands of enormous Wal-Marts out there.

7. More information available on the products you are buying
Bruce says he thinks there is more information available in the store, which seems completely backwards to me. All you have in the stores is what’s printed on the box in most cases, and that is 90% marketing drivel written by the manufacturer, so how useful is that? Ask a salesman? Yeah right. 95% of the sales guys out there will just pick up the box and read you the bullet list of features if you ask them for help. Most electronics stores have a bullet list and short description of the product printed on the price tag on the shelf, but frequently these are out of date, inaccurate, or not even for the right product.

Online there is usually a similar bullet list of features, but with a quick button press or two you can search for reviews of the product in question and find dozens of objective user reviews from any number of sites. Some e-commerce sites like Amazon.com even have a review system built-in, so it’s like asking 20 other customers in the store what their experiences were with this product before you spend your money on it. You can also access the manufacturer’s site with a click or two and most likely download electronic versions of the manuals, find any support issues in their knowledgebase, etc. Look up their number if you need to call them to ask a question like Bruce says you can do with a cellphone and the number on the box.

8. Easy to find the products you want
We spent 5 minutes looking for a Bill Engvall CD last night on Target’s cluttered shelves. We looked in all the categories, under the B’s, under the E’s… etc. We asked an employee for help, and he said without looking up, “Look under the E’s. Should be there”. Gee, thanks buddy! I didn’t think to try that! Alternatively, I just found every Bill Engvall CD available on Target.com in less than 15 seconds. Sure most searches on web sites could be better, but it’s already a whole lot easier than searching high and low on shelves in different parts of a store for the item you want. And what if someone picked up the last copy of that CD you wanted, then decided they didn’t want it when they were in the clothing section, so they just threw it behind some t-shirts? Now you can’t find it or buy it, even though the store has it in-stock. Online you know if the store has something in-stock, and you know it’s sitting in a warehouse somewhere, categorized and ready to be put in a box.

9. No Salesmen to Pressure You
Every time I walk into Best Buy or Circuit City and just want to look around to kill time, I get hassled by 3 salesmen in every department asking if I need help finding something or have questions. If I stay there for 10 minutes or more, they ask me again, and again, and again. Of course if I actually have a question, they are nowhere to found. Online you can spend as much time as you want looking at things, researching them, etc. If you need help there is usually a 1-800 number you can call for the store itself or a manufacturer. Sure you might have to wait in a call queue for a few minutes, but it’s worth it to me.

10. Don’t have to deal with the other customers
Another plus of ordering online from your own home. You don’t have to dodge other customer’s buggies, listen to cellphones going off, try to tolerate some kid screaming in the next aisle because his parent wouldn’t buy him the latest Poke’mon toy, etc.

I could come up with a lot more, but I think I’ll stop at 10. :)

Now maybe some of these reasons aren’t valid for everyone, I’m aware of that. I generally don’t like crowded areas, they really stress me out and put me in a terrible mood. So perhaps the more extroverted people out there actually enjoy being out and mingling with other people. But not me.

There are definite advantages to shopping in a physical store though. Instant gratification, like I mentioned before is one. And trying items before you buy them is another. But even then I will frequently run into a Best Buy and try something out, then go back home and purchase the item online either from bestbuy.com, or from another cheaper retailer I found online.

E-commerce is not without its problems, but 9 times out of 10, I will still enjoy the online experience a lot more than the brick and mortar method.

amen, amen, amen!

I do occasionally enjoy shopping in brick and mortar though, but most of the time I do that at a local meijer store (like super walmart but a little more upscale) at 2 in the morning and go through the automated checkout lane so if anyone screws up, it’s me. :-)

And I won’t usually buy clothing online… too hard to return if it doesn’t fit.

That’s true, clothing is one thing I’ll only buy in a brick and mortar store.

And of course groceries and things you would normally buy in a supermarket. And tools at a hardware store… I don’t want to pay $30 to ship a pickaxe or shovel to my house. :)