AIBU to think that shopping is now a cumbersome and alienating experience?

Like you, I don't enjoy going shopping. I do almost all of my Christmas shopping on Amazon and the odd bit elsewhere online or in a physical shop. I don't find it too bad at all tbh.

Supermarket- I go to Aldi because it's cheaper, smaller and takes less time at the checkout. I pop next door to Booths for extra nice bits.

We bought a car last week. Searched on local dealerships' website, identified one we fancied, went to the dealership, test-drove that one and bought it. Pretty much the same process as last time we bought one!

I've never been to a clothes shop where you have to scan and bag it yourself - is that really a common thing?!

I live in NW England, if that makes a difference, and I very rarely go into a big city centre.

what a clever way to stealth boast that you have upwards of 28 grand in cash available for the Tiguan 🤭🙄

This is such an exaggeration

I’ve never gone shopping for fun, not since I was about 16 anyway. Was gobsmacked ages ago to see shopping described (in an American mag) as a ‘leisure pursuit’.

I buy most of my clothes online, from a very few retailers, where delivery is quick and returns are very easy - and I know their sizing. If there’s a Royal Mail option for delivery I choose that, since the post here is very good and reliable.

I do food shopping in person, mostly Asda, but also Sainsbury’s, M&S and Waitrose. I won’t use any supermarket where you’re expected to self-serve a big shop, or there are hardly any staffed checkouts. For a few items I don’t mind.

what a clever way to stealth boast that you have upwards of 28 grand in cash available for the Tiguan 🤭🙄

I appreciate it may just be me as I've never been one for leisure shopping - I mean I've never seen it as being a hobby or pastime, more a means to an end.

But obviously at Xmas I have to do quite a lot of it, to get presents for people, and my goodness this year it's really felt like work.

Go online - well that's just wading through pages of shit, drop boxes, pop-ups and complex return and postage policies.

In person homewares - half the time the item isn't in the shop - back to online, as above, with no real idea about what the thing looks like (it would be a cold day in hell before I drop £2k on a sofa based on nothing more than a fucking photograph). Or it's broken/no one knows what the price is etc.

In person clothing - most sizes aren't there, and even if you do manage to find something you have to scan it and bag it yourself, regardless of if you're spending a fiver or £500. Piss take.

Supermarkets - don't even get me started. Find your stuff, scan your stuff, pack your stuff into your own bags (or pay £1 for each) with not a staff member in sight ... that's a warehouse, not a shop. And, most times the shelf tickets aren't accurate, the offers don't go through, the self scan tills are dirty, the shelves are dirty, everything is in the wrong place, loads of things are missing and the entire place is freezing cold. (Why are they so cold?) It's fucking garbage.

Is this just what late stage capitalism looks like? Where everything is dowdy and crap, and you have a constant background feeling of being slightly mugged and you'll never get what you want but will spend loads of money regardless?

I've got more money than I've ever had, I was looking forward to this stage of my life and buying some quality pieces - but where are they?! Even expensive stuff is rubbish and made of plastic... and I can only assume crew necks are cheaper to make than more flattering v-necks, because I can never find them either... I haven't bought anything for ages, I'm trying to look after my old stuff and stay slim enough to fit into it... (I have clothes from the eighties, the difference in quality is remarkable).

And the supermarkets have dropped the 'sell by' date on a lot of their fruit and veg 'to avoid waste' - yeah, for them! Now the stuff rots in our fridges instead of on their shelves...

I love shopping in supermarkets as long as they're not too busy. I find it strangely relaxing just wandering around them.

Yeah I wonder - it may be because Americans in general have, at least in my experience, friendlier more upbeat dispositions.

We’ve started going to Lidl now precisely so I don’t have to spend an hour traipsing through a warehouse of 28372 different types of jam.

I think modern life has demonstrated that in a lot of ways not all change is progress. Shopping was better for people when you had a local shop staffed by a person you knew, who could advise you on what to buy and would probably deliver it personally to your house. My mother remembers a shop near here where you would go in and ask for a simple item, like a jumper. The options would be laid on the counter for you to inspect (cotton or wool, white or blue) and you would choose.

Now we have a lot more choice and possibly things are cheaper, but we have worse service, worse quality, worse human relationships and we’re killing the planet. And all the choice actually makes the experience worse for us because it scrambles our brains and makes us feel unsatisfied.

The balance between the pros and cons of capitalism for ordinary people was reached decades ago, now we have mass consumerism it is all pros for the rich making the profit and cons for the customer.

In our village we actually still have a village shop run by a man whose family have run the same shop for several generations. He is a pillar of the community, helpful and stocks a range of really useful things (unlike most village shops which seem to be 80% booze, crisps and vapes now).

The way to fight back is to buy very sparingly and support shops that behave like relics from the past if you can.

I feel like I want to go to a big European city like Paris, Berlin or Barcelona for a shopping weekend, where hopefully the experience is more fun and interesting!

High streets are identical from one town to the next. It's as if there's a ticklist.

M&S✅
Boots✅
Superdrug ✅
John Lewis ✅
Next ✅
WH Smith ✅
McDonald's ✅

And many more big chains.

@TeenLifeMum yes, cars! Who tf buys a car online? I mean seriously do these people walk amongst us? Because car dealers seem to think they do. You ring up about something they've got advertised and it's all "well we can transport it here from Goole or some other arsehole place, and you can look at it for five milliseconds to make your mind up but after that your viewing deposit will disappear into my capacious buttcheek bar the usual exclusions of earthquake and outright ongoing war". Wankers.

Supermarket shop - I use Ocado so it takes 10 minutes to order and 10 minutes to put it in the cupboards (family of 5) so no issue there.

Clothes can be annoying as availability is rubbish these days. I also hate sending things back when shopping online and guessing sizes.

i chose a sofa online but went to try it out and found it really uncomfortable so we found a different one in the store. So many options online but I limited our search to what we could test out as it’s an expensive and important purchase.

I’ll add cars to the list. I’ve concluded our local Ford garage is a front to some joinery laundering scheme as 3 times (in 10 years) I’ve attempted to buy a car from them - a fiesta, a ka and an smax and each time been ignored or dismissed as “we don’t have any” before I’ve even told them my budget. I had cash each time but had to go to a different dealership. Last May I went to look at Kugas … I’ve ended up with a vw Tiguan from the vw garage next to Ford 🤷🏻‍♀️