To Shop or Not to Shop – Online?  

Earlier this year, I had a revelation about the impact that the internet and the surge of “easy” technology has had on my life. It is easy to look up that fun fact! It is easy to order that cute shirt! But, I realized I had a lot of screen time between my phone, work computer, and tablet.  Although the internet is a great tool and has helped me in almost every facet of my life, it is also a bit too convenient and can sometimes be more harmful than helpful. 

For this reason, I decided to find practical ways to cut down on my internet exposure. As many of you might guess, this could be quite difficult. So, I focused on one thing, my biggest time and money waster: online shopping. 

Cutting Back: Reasoning & Surprising Benefits

As a person who is (technically) in Generation Z, I was born with the internet and have grown up with computers as a part of everyday life. Amazon, for example, had transferred from exclusively selling books to being a hub for online shopping years before I was even born. Because of this, I grew up with almost everything I could think of buying – right at my fingertips. 

With this freedom of choice and the push of trends on social media, if I wanted it, I bought it. Almost immediately and right from the comfort of my own home. Along with this unhealthy habit of impulse buying, I also noticed that, over time, I had become overwhelmed with the amount of choices there were. Not only were there thousands of stores I could choose from, there were thousands of products on each site. 

In a world where everything is available, what do you choose? And, how do you know if you have made the right decision? 

That was the “paradox of choice” dilemma every time I shopped online. The paradox of choice “suggests that the more options we have, the less satisfied we feel with our decision… too many choices requires more cognitive effort, leading to decision fatigue and increased regret over our choices” (The Decision Lab).

I decided to buy local, in person. By transferring my shopping to be entirely in store, I have cut my choices significantly. Although this might seem like the opposite of what people have been striving for, it has dramatically improved my shopping stress levels and confidence in my choices. 

Along with the paradox of choice decreasing, my impulse buying has also declined. Now, when I want to buy something, I am almost forced to wait and think about if I actually need it. Even just going to a local store in town takes planning and forethought and I have to wait until the next time I go out of town if I want to shop at a larger box store. Sometimes, by the time I am physically in a place to buy what I want, I have decided I don’t really need it or I can find another way to accomplish the products intended use. 

I’ve actually saved money!

Not only have I saved money by forgoing products or simply reusing things that I already have, I also get more opportunity to think about the quality of the product and decide what is actually worth buying. 

Product Deception

When shopping online there is always a question of quality. Even with an accurate title, pictures, and plenty of customer reviews, it is always up to chance. 

Lately, the titles of products seem to be extremely misleading. Sellers often pack in keywords to rank higher in search results leading to those long and awkward titles that feel more confusing than descriptive. Even if you search for something specific, a product that doesn’t fit the criteria still appears. For example, if I search for a 100% cotton shirt, my results vary significantly. Some, while having ‘cotton’ in the title, may only be about half cotton, or some may have one option that is 100% cotton while other colors contain elastane or spandex.

Confirming my decision to physically shop for my products, I have seen an increasing amount of misleading online product pictures. Some are stolen from reputable websites that actually create quality clothing and others are AI created. Before, AI product pictures were easy to spot, but now they can be highly convincing, tricking shoppers into buying fake products. 

As many of you have likely experienced, I have been burned many times when relying on a website’s integrity with their product portrayal. Buying one thing and receiving something similar but inferior or even something completely different. 

To make sure that the products match the description and pictures, I always checked the reviews. This used to be a sure way to know exactly what you were getting and discover any issues from previous customers. Now, fake reviews have been escalating. With the rise of AI, there has been a massive amount of realistic, high-quality fake reviews, making them harder to distinguish from genuine consumer feedback. Even if the company is not writing these 5 star reviews themselves, through an incentivized feedback “loophole”, companies sometimes offer free or discounted products in exchange for good reviews. 

With all of this in mind, I’d rather spend my money on quality things that I have inspected with my own hands and eyes. 

Buy It For Life

Ceasing online shopping has allowed me to slow down and become more deliberate with my product choices. 

I try to buy things that are good quality and will, hopefully, last a long time, and I’m not alone. There’s an increasing interest from consumers for quality products which has been commonly referred to as “Buy it for life”. I believe this mindset is a response to the prevalence of lower quality, cheap, online products. And, I’ve learned when buying products for their longevity instead of their cheaper price, you can actually save money in the end. Yes, when shopping online you can easily compare prices and find the absolute cheapest options, however, in a year from now, will you still be using that product?

According to Rawshot AI, “consumers buy 60 percent more clothing items today than they did in 2000” and “the average American throws away approximately 81.5 lbs of clothes every year”. 

I’ve decided to  buy 5-10 quality pieces of quality clothing in person, instead of 50 pieces of clothing for a cheaper price that might not even last a year 

Shopping Small

When I quit shopping online, I also thought about the impact of my dollar. I have always felt it was important to support small, locally owned businesses. It is a way to participate in your local economy and support a thriving community. Instead of looking online because it’s convenient, I try to check my local small businesses first. They usually have what I am looking for or have a good alternative. Sometimes they have something that I didn’t even know I wanted! Shopping small is as easy as it is beneficial as there are approximately 36.2 million small businesses in the United States, making up 99.9% of all US businesses (Office of Advocacy).

Cyber Safety

Although not the catalyst for my shopping change,  online security is one of the most important benefits that I have discovered. I was always on alert asking myself at every site:

• Are they a legitimate business?
• Is this the real company’s website?
• What are they doing with my data?
• Are they protecting my information?