Online shopping – it’s accessible, easy and clickable. Akin to falling down the rabbit hole, you don’t know how you got there, you don’t know where you’re going. Has it been five minutes? Or perhaps five hours. Nordstrom's website can be a dark, scary place when your PayPal account automatically connects at the checkout. One thing is for certain: I always emerge with many unnecessary, unwanted purchases I will never wear.
At first glance, online shopping seems like the best invention since sliced bread. Shop while you are in bed, on a long car ride, in an interminable lecture or any other activity where you have access to your smartphone. Save gas by not going to the mall. You care about the environment. Read reviews on the items before purchasing, what a savvy shopper you are. But do not be fooled. There are many pitfalls in online shopping, and I have fallen into every last one of them.
Even the layout of the websites brings trouble for hungry fashionista’s trying to swoop up the latest trends. The clothes on the website are worn by sample size models, meaning the clothes were made to fit their exact body. No one actually looks good in puffy shirts. I see dozens of clothing items a day while perusing the online stock that look great on the model, but would look terrible on me. Does that stop me from buying them? Absolutely not. Think about when you go to a regulatory store at the mall. You grab the items you think you like, keyword think, but then upon trying everything on, you realize that you only like three of the 12 items in the dressing room. Except with online shopping, that vetting process never happens, so you buy all 12 items.
The reason to online shop is because it is more convenient and less work. That means, for lazy people like myself, returning things bought online is just not a thing. It is so much extra work. Buying shipping supplies, packing up the clothes, and driving to a post office is just so hard. The easiest and obviously best option is to pretend you’ll find a use for it some day, curl it in a ball and throw it at the top of your closet never to be seen again.
Arguably the worst part of online shopping is that the hand motion for viewing that cute crop top and the hand motion for buying it are one in the same. Online shopping allows the reality of just how much money is being spent escape you. No cold hard cash running between your fingers, not even the bittersweet swipe of plastic. Just another click. Since phones and computers are utilized so much in our society, is is easy to become desensitized to these motions.
Zoe Stitzer is a freshman studying journalism news and information at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you online shop? Let Zoe know by tweeting her @zoe_stitzer.
