So I wanted a copy of the board game Carcassonne as it’s a game I’ve played with friends before and loved. For things like this I (like many others) would gravitate towards Amazon.
But after some research I found that my local board game cafe sells copies of the game cheaper than anywhere online. Yesterday I popped by, grabbed a copy and had a nice chat with the owner about the game and their favourite expansions. This was a significantly better experience than buying the game online from a soulless corporation, and my money has gone to an great local company rather than a billionaire. Why did we give up the joy of shopping locally and in-person for convenience?
Similarly I was looking out for a black denim jacket in my size. Instead of going to a big clothing retailer I checked out some charity shops, and I found exactly what I wanted for a fraction of the price with the money going towards charity.
Going forward I’m going to avoid Amazon and any big American companies wherever possible. Hopefully others will do the same :)
Time and convenience.
Going to a local independent bookshop, or whatever, is almost always a better experience. Going to specialist shops is almost always a better experience. But Amazon offers everything: and order can be done and dusted from your sofa in one minute, and you don’t need to bother figuring out who stocks what you want since Amazon has it. And if you have Prime, you’ll have it the next day with zero shipping costs.
Sure, it’ll probably be counterfeit but… time and convenience.
Time and convenience and… local shops were and are largely very disappointing for many types of purchases.
My first online buy (in 2003, at the age of 17) was a decent wired optical gaming mouse, a Logitech M510, in 2003. The first optical mouse I ever used that wouldn’t skip.
The selection at local computer stores was lacking to say the least, and they also could not give much good advice anyway.
I feel like this could be solved by means of a search engine that aggregated local retailers, you have sane defaults and then you can add ones you like and removed ones you don’t