To think online shopping gives us too much choice and makes choosing everyday stuff too hard?

[KimberleyClark]

Case in point. I have needed new slippers for a while. Every time I go on line to look I just can’t decide on a pair. Today happened to be walking past a shoe shop which had a sale on. Went in, saw a pair of slippers that I had already seen on the shop’s website and thought “they look fine”. Job done.

Edit: harder than it needs to be, not too hard.

Yes it actually wastes a lot of time because I spend far too long browsing undecided, reading reviews and then visiting other sites back and forth to save a few pennies.

Yes, there's far too much choice especially for clothes. I've decided to stop wasting my time looking online and not buying anythingn and actually go into clothes shops from now on. Also get to try the stuff on which will waste less time having to send things back.

No, I find the opposite. If I go to a shopping centre or department store I don’t know where to start and because retail design in stores is all about making the consumer walk past as many things as possible to encourage impulse buying, I get overwhelmed by having to find where what I’m looking for is located and where similar items might be. Whereas I can Google what I’m looking for and be quickly and easily presented with options I can browse fairly quickly.

I'm not someone who enjoys shopping so I don't want to waste hours on this kind of thing. So I usually do it by going on a couple of trusted websites, sorting the slippers (or whatever) in order of ascending price, and scrolling down until I find a pair I like. So it's the cheapest one I like IYSWIM.

It's just everything. New slippers, broadband supplier, type of tinned tomatoes, washing machine… unless it's something where you've got into a regular habit of buying something like a 4 pinter of own brand semi skimmed every week, or you actively constrain yourself in some way like choosing to buy groceries at a smaller supermarket with fewer lines like Lidl, everything has a massive array of choice. While you could just go to your nearest white goods shop and choose from the washing machines they have there, you also know that there are dozens of retailers and hundreds more models out there, and there could be one that's cheaper, or has a better selection of features, or comes with a better warranty, or has free fitting and disposal.

It's really hard to deliberately limit your choices and accept possibly paying more/getting worse, but the alternative is spending ages comparing and deliberating. Repeat for every item, product, policy, service etc. you buy and that's a lot of extra thinking and decision-making.

It can also turn into a total palaver.

I wanted some PJs from M&S. They didn't have them in stock in the store so I ordered them online in my usual size and arranged click and collect. Went to pick them up, got home and found they were a whole size bigger than my other M&S PJs in the same size. Re-ordered in smaller size, click and collect again, returned original PJs when collected new ones. Got them home, found they'd only sent the top half. Went to re-order but they were out of stock. Phoned customer service and went through about 5 mins of automated stuff, then waited in a queue to explain I'd received half a set of pyjamas. They told me I needed to take them back to the shop I collected them from. Three journeys of 24 miles in total for no PJs.

No, I don't find choosing stuff hard. I appreciate online shopping for giving me many more options than a small selection of shops could, especially as a person with fairly distinct tastes who often finds that things that happen to be 'in' are fucking ugly not at all to my taste. I'm not searching for something 'perfect', only for something that fits my requirements.

I agree OP I spend way to long doing "research" before I buy pretty much anything and then I worry about fake reviews and usually after I decide to buy a think I find out it has some draw back I didn't know about prior to that.

Yes I agree. I think it's made harder by the shops that are now combining brands, so you have a whole load of other brands to look through too.
You also can't judge size, quality, fabric, colour online, whereas in real life you can usually judge what will fit/suit you quite well. It's really hard to choose from a selection of images.

Short answer. No

I much prefer online shopping and have done for years.

Maybe it just takes practice 😁

The far wider choice and access to many things I wouldn't otherwise be able to get at all is a huge plus to me.

I love it.

Yes but on the other hand I HATE going in and out of a million different shops looking for one specific thing and I’m so relieved I can just google “green dungarees” or whatever it is and find some

No I find the opposite! RL shopping is such a drag having to get dressed and undressed trying things on, and the lighting and mirror angles are always rigged.

Even just going to buy shampoo, there is too much choice on shelves. Much easier to assess price and brand objectively and buy in your own time on-line.

And then there’s queuing at cash tills in over-heated shops which are laid out in such a way that you have to walk past 90% of the store until you reach the thing you need, and then they are out of stock! Who needs it?

Also, with on-line shopping, you get to know which things suit you best. And you can keep an eye on price and you can ponder and change your mind! Altogether much, much easier than shopping in rl!

Yes and no, as a previous poster said. When you need something really specific, online is ideal. For everything else, a nightmare. Even supermarkets as well tbh. Who wants to choose between 11 different types of peppercorn or 48 different packs of ham? Or realise youve spent about 3 hours staring at a screen looking at hundreds of different pairs of virtually identical slippers? What difference does it make really? It's a stupid level of choice we've got now, the illusion of choice, choices that just waste your finite time on earth.

Online is great for niche/specialised stuff you can’t actually get on the high street. Certain tech stuff for example. And if you want a particular book on a niche subject it’s easier to just order it off Amazon than try to find it in Waterstones.

Yes, when you need the choice it's great to have it. I think I just feel overloaded with choices sometimes. Even relaxing in front of the telly. It's not sitting down at five to 9 and deciding between the primetime offerings of 3–5 TV channels, it's selecting something from theoretically hundreds of thousands of things I could potentially choose to watch.

I think too much choice does make it hard, but supermarkets with 12 kinds of balsamic vinegar are the worst for me - so I find food shopping online easier - I find it easier to quickly choose