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

[HauntedBungalow]

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?

Yes - all the fun and glamour of a prison visit

made me smile and nod in recognition. I feel sorry for the staff having to work in such a depressing environment.

I feel hard core control by marketing media and advertising omg it's like being a zombie online and real shops 😱

Yes I think shopping has become an unwelcome experience once enjoyable now mostly depressing. I dread it.

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.

Yes! And shoplifting clearly such an issue that front doors are locked and you can’t get in or out without the manager coming with their key; then all the places that have their items locked together with big loops of wire, again to stop theft but they’re locked so tightly you can’t even see the clothes properly when browsing so have to ask for them to be unlocked if you even want to take a look - it’s all so tedious it just puts me off browsing at all as it’s just not a pleasant experience. It will lead to the death of more physical shops but then of course I then don’t buy online as without being able to feel the fabric or assess for fit it’s far too unlikely the item will be right and then you’ve the faff of returning it and huge outlay of cash flow just to try stuff on.

I found shopping in the US a lot less depressing despite it being the centre of late stage capitalism really .

Target always seems warm and bright. Even their wholefoods supermarket seemed nicer too. I always avoid Walmart though!

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

Yeah this is maybe why I do online grocery shopping most of the time. I went to a supermarket for the first time in months today and it was so grimy but I did get a friendly staff member put my stuff through at the checkout while everyone else was going for the self service lol

But then I went to boots for click and collect and 4 young female staff looked at me with great annoyance when I asked one of them to come over since no one was at the click and collect till at the other side of the store.

I recently ordered from Argos and didn’t realise they use yodel for delivery. Nightmare. I was in all day and yet had stuff left outside my building, and other stuff dumped inside in the foyer. I ordered it to my flat not to be left outside and around my flat building. Ridiculous.

supermarkets , i usually put it in trolley then take it to a manned till, i prefer them due to the reduced sections that you dont get online

On a positive note I used Dunelm and twice Evri delivered things that weren't mine from Shien..But, Dunelm online chat was a real person who apologised and processed the refunds really quickly. That's a needle on a haystack experience though, most companies are awful in this regard. I still have this bag of junk from Shien, trying to get either Shien or Evri to acknowledge the problem and collect their junk is beyond any more human energy on my part.

I used to love shop browsing of a Saturday and treating myself to a coffee and cake rarely went home without something even if it was an essential from Boots and something from M and S food hall but now I never go to just browse. Anything resembling work wear is just not there, T-shirts are so thin you can read newsprint through them no sizes in stock and stores have reduced staff levels so much there’s never anyone available to ask a question. If you do manage to find someone they are usually polite but say no we don’t have it in the store but you could order it online, if I wanted to order it online I wouldn’t be in the bl•••y store in the first place. I had a funeral to attend recently, 5 shops I had to go into in our city centre before I could get a pair of basic black trousers in my size. My only hope after that was Primark or Tesco. I need new clothes in general , some of mine are getting a bit threadbare and I need some new towels but I just can’t face a horrible shopping experience at the moment. I do order quite a lot online but deliveries up to 10pm at night, parcels going missing, quite an expensive item being damaged in transit the box looked like it had been used as a football, one delivery guy being outrageously rude to me means it’s not a great option either. No wonder shops aren’t doing well at the moment if people like me need to buy things, have the money to buy these things, but are just scunnered of the shopping experience on offer.

I grew up with adverts like this.( probably seems really naff these days but look how inviting it is! ) We had a fabulous Richards Shop in town in the 70s/ early 80s, was like an Aladdin's. Cave of beautiful styles, jewellry, makeup, fabrics, including Biba. Miss those days so much!

I must be lucky to live in small town NZ then as I haven't found any of these issues here. I do buy a lot online, but am tiring of that as I am so sick of sending things back, and am having a battle with a cumbersome return service at one store, which I won't be using again if there is the remotest possibilty something might have to be returned. I would say most of my friends buy from actual stores though, and they seem happy enough. The service in our local supermarkets is also pretty good.

I agree. I also find staff in the US on the whole to be more helpful and pleasant. As you say, if capitalism is the cause of shopping problems, then it’s strange that the US experience is better than the UK. There must be another reason.

I don't understand how we are being herded to join in though. And then there's AI.
I'm in UK and vexed altogether

Like the good old days and bumping into friends and going for random coffee or lunch invitations. Socialising in real life.

Grocery shopping I do online and get it delivered. Much quicker and more convenient than doing it in store. The only drawback is that it can get a bit samey because I'm not looking at different items or offers.
Christmas and gift shopping probably 80% online. I like thinking about gift ideas then googling to find what I want, then again to find the best price. Also adult children send me links so I know I'm getting something they really want.
Clothes shopping mainly Vinted or Charity shops.It has to be something pretty special for me to buy new ( Apart from knickers, bras and socks😀)
My local shopping area is a bit dire. Lots of empty shops and too much traffic.

Is anybody else mystified by the coercion to use apps? I don't get it - they can't get any more customer data from an app than the website (or the staff, back in the day when they had staff and incentivised them to give you a discount for joining their list).

Shelf talkers increasingly list two prices, the lower one for scanning the product in their bloody app. Online shopping - 🔥 discount! 🔥 when you order through the app! 🌟 special offers! 🌟 App only! Or ... 😞 the website doesn't work 😞 but you can shop through our app! Why the hell would I want to browse products on a 15 x 7 centimetre screen instead of a nice big one? And why are they so determined that I should??

You know, I was on the thread about old people not keeping up with technology (I have skin in both ends of this game) and got terribly exasperated by the endless stream of posts stressing that you've got to keep up with it or you're fucked. This basically means people have now accepted that humans must do, behave, be whatever 'tech' wants, or - well, die? Pundits used to warn of this, it seems to have happened: the person works for the computer now, not the other way round.

Of course 'the computer' doesn't want you wandering around in the open, making independent choices without asking, so in-person shopping keeps getting less appealing. But I still don't know why it's so bloody keen on apps.

People need human interactivity.
I feel like a freaking robot these days shopping online. Well, that's what is. Coercion is an understatement.
Sometimes I feel like refusing to be drawn in and deleting my profiles everywhere. FFS leave me alone AI bots

See, this would piss me off more than any of the above 🤨

I only use a few brands for clothes shopping so know my size and what I want, grocery shopping is mainly done online, top up shopping in M&S or Waitrose. If I want to browse the stores we have a nice retail park with lots of clothes shops that is free parking or I walk but I mainly buy clothes online anyway

I used to enjoy going clothes shopping. If your size wasn’t on the rail you’d ask if they had one in the back, and very often it was. Now they’ve got XS or XXL and nothing in between. I think that if a shop doesn’t have your size in, they should order it for you and send it to your home with no P&P to pay.

One of the reasons is that US retail staff are more likely to work on commission- “did anybody help you today?”.

What really winds me up is retailers selling other retailers stuff, next is a prime example am I looking through their website or say yours clothing? Everywhere feels like it sells the same thing as the next place.
I used to love shopping a wonder round oddly a nice carrier bag would get me in places and then some nice coffee and lunch now I end up ordering on the internet.
Sad times really.

Its thankfully not so bad in my country. Supermarkets have plenty of workers, always manned tills open (and the vast majority of people use them, even if they only have a couple of items, which is perhaps annoying in itself when you have to queue but I'd rather queue than lose the manned tills), so I still enjoy doing the weekly shop.

Clothes shopping I'm less keen on, but that's more to do with finding it difficult to find clothes I like (can't bear certain materials as they feel so weird on my skin, so I try to only buy pure cotton or linen whenever possible), and some shops are starting to go down the self-service till route but I've always found manned tills open too.

Hate shoe shopping though, feels almost impossible to find shoes that fit right, they're always too tight in the toes, and they're always so expensive.

Buying online I stick to shops I know are actual real shops, with real in-country physical shops and warehouses as well as their webshops. Costs more but I know I'm not going to get some weird poor quality shot.

I've not been actual shopping to buy stuff in 20 years

I only go now for 'nice extras' - candles/gloves/make up. I NEVER go for 'needs', I buy all that online.

That way I'm not disappointed. I go 3 times a year to Liberty, Bond Street, regent street but only for a small purchase (under £100) and only for stuff I don't need.

Everything else is second hand off EBay.

As a child and a teenager I remember how great shopping was but I suspect I just had more tolerance then for trying on and browsing the rails.

I loved department store shopping with my Mum in Fenwicks/Peter Jones, we'd buy from most departments and then walk out with a dozen bags and get a taxi. Each department serving you individually and then wrapping and paying at that till.