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I'd rather not! Give me a brick and mortar store over online shopping any time

 

So, I finally bit the bullet. After resisting for years on end, I succumbed to the lure of buying clothes online – but only because the website of one of my go-to stores had much better merchandise available than that on offer at its physical stores. So, I clamped down on my doubts and went click, click, click, and then waited with bated breath for delivery.

 

And how did it go, you ask? 

 

Well, it wasn’t entirely an unmixed blessing. I tried on all the dresses that I had ordered, but even though they were ostensibly the same size, they all fitted differently. Some were perfect for my size, some were loose, and some others were tight – go figure! Some looked exactly as advertised on the site; others were nothing like the images that I had clicked on. Some of the fabrics were soft and smooth while some others were rough and harsh.

 

Let’s just say I had a 50 per cent success rate, with just half the outfits being keepers. The others had to be returned, but no matter how hard I tried to do so online, I could not crack the system. Eventually, I conceded defeat and carried the rejects to the brick-and-mortar store to return them and ask for store credit.

 

So, given that my first attempt wasn’t quite a hundred per cent success, would I do it again? To tell you the truth, I am conflicted on this one. I cannot lie, there is something truly addictive about being able to buy something by just clicking on an icon on your phone. There is a dopamine rush that comes from that sense of having an entire world of possibilities literally at your fingertips.

 

And yet, the process lacks the element of instant gratification. After paying your dues, you have to wait for a couple of days for your merchandise to arrive. And this is quite unlike the thrill of paying for something in a shop and walking right out with it.

 

Then, there is the whole thing about touch and feel. Shopping for clothes is essentially a tactile act. You run your hands over the contents of shelves, you riffle through racks, you rub a fabric between your fingers, you slip on a dress in the changing room to see how it falls – and feels – on your body.

 

You can’t do any of this when you are shopping for clothes online. Instead, you have to rely on images in which the outfits are shown on willowy bodies that bear no resemblance to your own. You have to imagine how they will work on your less than perfect frame – and then hope to God that you got it right.

 

Perhaps that was why I reverted back to type on my last trip abroad. I went to the physical store of the same brand I had ordered online from in India. And then, I went totally old school. I picked up a collection of clothes, tried them on, rejected some, kept some, and then kept repeating the process till I had all I was looking for.

 

And you know what? It felt great! So, I guess you have my answer. Online shopping for clothes? Yes, at a crunch. But proper shops are where it’s at, as far as I am concerned.

 

Shop till you drop

After months of online shopping, there is something invigorating about returning to brick-and-mortar stores

 

I am not an ingrate, so I will be the first to admit that online shopping kept me sane during the Covid lockdowns. And even after the pandemic-related restrictions eased, I continued to shop online for many months, out of an abundance of caution. But ever since the Covid numbers have shown a steady decline in Delhi, I have mustered up the courage to step out to the shops for a spot of retail therapy. And I use the term ‘therapy’ advisedly because just the simple act of shopping when I can see, touch, smell things before I commit to buying them has brought me so much pleasure. 

 

When I was sequestered at home, I had ordered some Le Crueset pots and pans online, justifying the expense by telling myself that these would last me a lifetime. But there was something oddly disquieting about choosing things on the basis of a few photographs on Amazon. And even though I didn’t regret my purchases, the process of ordering them felt curiously joyless. So, you can imagine my delight when I finally made it to the store, where I could look at the entire selection, marvel over the myriad colours on offer, pick up the cast-iron pans and roasting trays to feel how they handled, before I finally made my purchase. In a strange way, the pans I bought in-person brought me more joy than the stuff I had purchased in an entirely impersonal way.

 

It was much easier to buy gadgets when I could actually examine them in the shop, have a sales assistant explain how they worked, or even have a live demonstration to help me make up my mind. I had been agonizing over buying an Instant Pot for months on end, for instance, checking it out on various e-commerce sites, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to press the ‘Buy now’ button just on the basis of what I read on the sites. But when Dhanteras came around, and I nipped out to the shops to buy something for the house, it was the Instant Pot that my eyes fixed on. I examined it from all angles, while the shop owner explained its many features to me. And before you could say ‘slow cook mode’ I was walking out of the shop, the proud owner of an Instant Pot, without any of the dithering I had engaged in online.  

 

Clothes shopping, which had felt like a chore when I was doing it online, turned into a joy when I ventured out to brick-and-mortar stores. The very act of riffling my fingers through the outfits on the racks, experiencing the sensuous feel of silk on my skin, the soft touch of cotton, or even the light-as-air caress of chiffon, made me feel alive in a way that online shopping never could. And then, there was the bonus of actually being able to try on clothes, to see how they looked on me, how they felt against my skin, and whether the cut was flattering or just plain unsuited to me. There is no way you can do all that while shopping online. And yes, you can always return the outfits that don’t match your expectations when you finally try them on, but honestly, where is the fun in that? 

 

The most fun I had, though, as I ventured back into the world, was when I went vegetable shopping. Even though my friendly neighbourhood subziwallah had kept me well-supplied with all my staples throughout the Corona crisis, I missed the feeling of actually going to the shop and looking at all the wares on display, of having all of my senses involved in the purchase of what we would eat for lunch and dinner. I longed to choose the plumpest tomatoes on display. I wanted to smell the fresh perfume of the season’s first methi crop. I needed to test the firmness of every apple before I put it into my basket. And when the day dawned when I could finally do all that, it felt like a slice of normalcy had been restored to my life.

 

At the end of the day, that’s all that we long for, isn’t it? A bit of normalcy. And nothing says normal like being able to pop out to the shops.