The shopping age has changed drastically in the last few years. It used to be an all-day excursion to find the perfect gift with lunch at the mall with over-crowded food courts and crowds of people everywhere. Now a-days you will be hard pressed to find an oversized crowd at the mall. It seems a lot less people go shopping from day-to-day locally. This can be nice for crowd purposes but this is having an affect our economy, health and job environment.
Does this mean that people are buying less? The answer to that is NO, they are not. In fact now that on-line shopping has become more and more prominent, it is easier then ever for people to get bored or become addicted to shopping. Heck…you can even sit during a movie and spend hundreds to thousands of dollars without leaving the couch!
There are a lot of stores where you can buy items very conveniently, with fast shipping and even get deliveries on Sunday’s, but what shoppers don’t realize, or ignore, is the impact it has on the local economy.
I found an awesome flier that explains very well what this does and everyone should read it.
Here it is.
*Image from retailersprotected.com*
*”When Manufacturers sell directly to consumers, the retailers, sales representatives, trade shows, publications, magazines and many others in the supply chain risk elimination from the market: this is the New Retailer Paradigm.”
*”IF SELLING TO THE PUBLIC HURTS (CLOSES) RETAIL STORES WHY DO MANUFACTURERS SELL TO THE PUBLIC?”
This should help explain it easily…
*Image from retailersprotected.com*
What it boils down to is how passionate people are to helping the economy thrive and have a better and more successful place to live. I hear people debate all the time about bringing jobs back to the US instead of oversees. The funny thing is, and rather hypocritical thing is that most those people I have heard vent have been Prime members of one or more shopping sites. So they are not practicing what they are preaching.
Now my confession…I have been guilty of this for a long time until about 9-months ago. I started keeping track of what I was actually spending with online shopping and realized that in the long run I was spending a lot more then I realized. Not only was I binge shopping out of sheer boredom, I was also spending extra money on returns for items because I was not happy with them for the quality or fit. I actually bought a pair of keens online and traded them twice. Ya, they were cheaper than the retail store by like $20. Well let’s just say I could have bought the pair of keens and lunch for me and my daughter for the price of paying for them to fit online. the other issue is the wait time. I had to wait for the right size and missed taking them to my beach trip which was the whole point of ordering them in the first place.
So the question to ask yourself is…do you want to keep supporting oversees manufacturers and help close down the local businesses or do you care enough about where you live to stand up and let the US economy thrive again? Do you want to keep filling the pockets of someone sitting behind a desk in their 2-mile warehouse or would you rather help some local business owner send their kids to College or simply put food on the table?
Besides with the obesity rate and type II diabetes rates climbing why not spend a day out walking the mall or local retail stores. Hay…calories burned is calories burned, plain and simple. Plus it gets you off the electronics and back to life. The sun still rises and there are many beautiful days to enjoy so why not get out of the house and enjoy them. I have learned about these new outside malls and small towns main street stores. They are my new favorite places to shop. Some of the small town Main Street Small Businesses have more than I have ever realized and they will bend over backwards to get you what you need. You don’t have to e-mail customer service and returns/exchanges are free.
I sure have been enlightened!
This girl is now local first and foremost, if I can’t find it local than I will submit to the online world. However I don’t see too many online purchases in my future.
Happy Shopping! With Christmas coming up in just a few months this is a great time to start seeing what is around you and your neighborhood for all your loved ones!