I absolutely hate online shopping. I still like to go out and go to a physical store to make purchases. The main problem nowadays is , less and less is available at your local retailer. So there are times you have no choice but to buy online. Recently had to get a new phone case. Went to 6 different places, couldn't find the one I wanted, so Amazon it was. Was no savings on price either but had it that night.

I'd rather flip through a physical paper catalog, than scroll through menus on a website. If I'm not in a rush to get an item, every once in awhile, I'll actually fill out the order form in a catalog and mail it in with a check, to buy something, for old times sake. My wife just looks at me and shakes her head. :D

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Interesting and very cool.

We get our honey locally and have been for several years. We get eggs, chicken and a bunch of meat from a local producer that has a booth at a big "farmer's market" on Saturdays.

We do buy local, but only a drop in the bucket compared to you.

Moving to a metropolis to have better access to goods and services. That's hard core.

Well done.

Or to a box store. Walmart devastated mom and pop's way before online shopping did.

My wife and I usually treated ourselves to a nice dinner out at a place that still had tablecloths and real napkins. Over the years the service became less and less enjoyable and the list of places we'd go to diminished. Some were too expensive to go often and others went out of business. New eateries didn't cut it so well with us, so by the time the pandemic hit we were not even inconvenienced one bit.

That's just the food side. Many businesses followed a similar path for CS and I couldn't stand it. I learned to shop online over 10 years ago and hardly ever go to store other than the grocery store.

As I've said many times, I hate the HD and dread when I go, but I have one within 2 miles so it's hard to want to add miles just to not go there. I've been maybe 4 times in the last 12 months. Lowe's is almost as bad but the one 8 minutes from me by freeway is a ghost town by comparison. So I will divert to there in non peak traffic hours, usually early.

We have a few Ace hardware stores and by and large they are very good. Not cheap and really compact. Social distancing is impossible, one of the reasons I'm at the grocery before 7am. But the hardware isn't open until 9.

AFA as the rest, I don't do fast food anymore and when I did it was limited to something simple like an egg burrito. How can you mess that up? And there are some decent ones out there along with a breakfast burrito or fried egg sandwich (on wheat, hold the meat).

Department stores like Macy's nowadays are atrocious. Malls are atrocious and are going downhill eventually to fail, with a few high end exceptions that are out of reach for me. Like 45 minutes away in SoCal traffic. Didn't go there much before the pandemic either, maybe 2wice a year. Never bought anything but a grossly overpriced designer coffee and watched my wife waste time. Couldn't wait to get home.

So from the perspective of living in Los Angeles County with a million something small businesses, I don't try and sort that out. Don't get me wrong, there are some fantastic stores that you won't find in many places. These are the kind of shops you see rented out for movie sets, or just so specialized that you have to go just for the experience.

But how often do I need to rummage through a mountain of antique plumbing fixtures or shop for every art supply under the sun? And I can eBay most of that. But you know, sometimes it's the hunt more than the find. I find myself less inclined these days.

Alot of what I order from amazon are things like light bulbs, batteries, 15$ toys for the kids to bring to classmates birthdays

Really don't know how i would support local shopping for this sort of thing. I am fully on board with quality is remembered after price is forgotten, but I dont need free range organic handcrafted AA batteries.

Try to.
I've been renovating and have gone to 1 of our local electrical supply stores and a flooring store for purchases.
When I picked up some LED recessed lights at the electrical store, I told the guy BTW I'm going to HD for wood and could have bought this stuff there, but you need a job. He now greets me by name which is really nice.
But somethings I can only get at Amazon. Like the $200 2 step ladder that I had to have and all the little electrical parts for my fishing boat set up.
Also being in Canada, many companies only sell through Amazon here.
I feel that the big box stores are no better than Amazon.

I used to buy light bulbs from a local store in Tulsa. That’s all they sold, light bulbs and related things. They were primarily directed at commercial accounts but they sold virtually every light bulb under the sun. I stocked up on incandescent bulbs before they became difficult to buy, so I haven’t bought many lightbulbs in recent years. As a side benefit, the bulbs I bought were rated for 130 V, instead of 120 V, so they ended up lasting longer.

I buy batteries from grocery or hardware stores. I also have a pretty good stock of those, so usually I just walk in my pantry and get what I need. When I start to run low on a particular size, I just add it to the list on my phone and buy it the next time I’m out.

+1000

"not made in China" LOL. You don't buy much do you?

For batteries, most of the time the grocery store or hardware stores are as good or better (price-wise).

Light bulbs, probably same as above.

Then it's about, "is buying at my local big box store better than Amazon?" Well, at least the local big box store is employing local people.

But, I have purchased LED bulbs from Amazon in the past. If i was looking for generic incandescent or CFL, it probably wouldn't matter. These days, LED probably wouldn't matter unless I was looking for a specific model of a specific brand or something VERY specific.

I don't think I've ever purchased Amazon brand anything, but I know it's out there.

Local is my first choice. Smaller shops versus big chains.

Made in the USA is a key criteria too.

If I have to go to the internet I try to buy direct from the manufacturer.

Amazon is my last option.

Out of curiosity (not trying to be funny) do you look for someplace else specific or just anyplace except China? For instance, a lot of folks here look for "made in the USA." You may not, probably don't, have that same affinity. Is there much of a "made in Aus" thing? Or are you just OK with Taiwan, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, etc...?

Take bearings as an example. From USA, Japan, some countries in Europe… I’m happy to buy. Elsewhere, no. I buy from bearing houses and look at the country of origin before money trades hands.

i support my local restaurants for sure. i do not eat at chain restaurants for the most part.

stores? i think i just paid for a fishing tackleshop owner's kid's braces. its when he doesn't have something i want (ahem - NEED!), i will mail order.

What about items that just aren't available locally? eg In order to get the tires I want for the Duc my choice is to drive around to the few MC shops within 30 miles and pay out the butt or, go online and get them within two days for A LOT less money.

I’ve always had the ability to negotiate discounts at shops like that. In Tulsa, I had two or three at any one time that would give me substantial discounts. Since I’ve moved to Dallas, I’ve opened up relationships with two different brands. Every motorcycle dealership can get every tire out there, they use the same wholesalers. I also use them to install and balance the tires, Mondays are doing that myself are long gone. Work up a relationship with the service manager at your favorite dealership and you’d be surprised, they will give you discounts too.

I need DAP Weldwood Contact Cement. I don't need it today, the next few days is fine.

Mom and Pop Hardware store has it, 19 bucks a quart. I can walk there and back in 20 minutes.
Lowes, HD. 14 bucks a quart. Website says they have it. I've been burned before. 40 minute drive there and back, and I'm nervous that it'll be a waste of time.
Amazon has it in stock, it'll be here tomorrow, 12 bucks. Winner winner, I save enough for the chicken dinner.

Yes, I am concerned as to what the future holds as we do this to ourselves, but what's happening right now in retail seems to parallel what's happening in recycling. As individuals we try and do our part, but big business absolutely dwarfs the collective attempts of the individual and we just get swept along in spite of our good intentions.

Jeff Bezos thanks you, he’s now worth north of $200 billion.

I’d probably take the walk to the local store, I need to walk a little bit every day anyway and you never know, you might find some thing along the way like a good place to eat lunch.

Or, maybe you can find it at a better price locally at a place that sells wholesale materials to upholstery shops, or something like that. Or, I lumberyard. I used to have a wholesale account at a couple of lumberyards in Tulsa, before I moved.

I do you get the part about “easy.” But, I hate Jeff Bezos and I’m stubborn son of a *****.

For the cheap stuff or odd stuff like dog speech training buttons we get a lot online. Most hardware and car stuff we get local most of the time. I got out R/C crawler at a shop an hour away, but I was down there anyway.

One thing we used to get locally is White Rock ginger ale and it isn't anywhere to be found locally now.

The store in the small town I grew up in has hardware (bolts, nuts, electrical, pluming, etc), livestock feed and care, automotive stuff, a deli and local wines in addition to regular gorceries. I teased Speeder a while back on the big city thread that I could go get grade 8 bolts, an electric fence, rotisserie chicken and advice on a local wine all in the same store.

I have lots of hobbies and vehicles....

My normal go to is Ebay for replacement parts for most of my hobbies/sporting equipment/foreign vehicle parts.

I do buy oil, filters etc from Oreillys in town I work in. Walmart in same town for dog food, soap, snacks, batteries etc. Lowes or Menards in next further town for building and home improvement supplies. Tractor Supply for outdoor supplies.

Most of what I buy online for my hobbies is simply not available or stocked locally anywhere near my location in rural NW Ohio.

I rarely ever order from Amazon as too many times it gets shipped FedEx which means it gets damaged, lost or waylayed.

Interesting. 99% of my Amazon purchases come via UPS.

One of the few things I miss about living in Northern Virginia after moving in 2020. We had a mom-pop hardware in our neighborhood just 3 minutes down the street. Village Hardware in Fort Hunt VA, just a couple of miles up from Mt Vernon. It is the kind of place that puts stuff out on the sidewalk everyday because the store is crammed full of inventory.

They had everything from seed, to oil, to those bins of nails where you buy by weight! Then the basement had the absolute best BBQ section that also included a large number of rubs and sauces. One of the best I've ever seen.

I would go there rather than to HD that was only 5 minutes the other direction. The cost difference was pennies. They knew their stuff too.

So old school they don't even have a web site...

Google tells me that the original owner from 1979 just sold last year.
https://alexandrialivingmagazine.com/business/village-hardware-changes-hands/

There was a candy/soda/sandwich place in town, closed 1993, that was just about unchanged from the 1930s.
I got to fill in for my roommate shortly before it closed.
Drake's Sandwich Shop still stirs the memories of its fans
https://aadl.org/N101_0464_002

Me too. In SoCal, there is a great one in downtown Yorba Linda. Older couple with their dog roaming the aisles or snoozing behind the counter.

A local Ace Hardware is my first choice over Lowes or Home Depot.

My Amazon orders today totaled 9. From gun oil to a bag of durabond

That’s 15 in 24 hours

If I was to drive around looking for all these things it would have taken me 3 weeks and I probably would have found less than half of them

Interesting. 100% of mine come from an Amazon electric delivery van. UPS or FedEx or USPS haven’t delivered me an Amazon order in years

Interesting thread and reading. As an owner of a business it is a good read to see peoples thoughts.

There’s a part of me that says it’s wasteful of resources to have all of the people and work necessary to funnel 15 separate orders to one person in a 24 hour period.

I understand that you might expand a lot of energy and time to go round up all that stuff yourself, but I tend to structure my trips outside the house to accomplish several tasks at once, so I’m not coming and going constantly. Ordinarily, I’ll wait till I have at least four or five things to do before I make a trip.

That’s not how Amazon works. My packages are delivered at once by one person. Amazon workers are paid to fulfill orders and much of it is automated. Maybe i don’t understand what you mean

I have a job. I don’t have time anymore to run around, especially since I work from home.

My only trips outside the house to an actual store are to flip through the bins at the record store for the most part

And don’t forget, I’m not in Texas. It’s no fun running these errand in 10 degrees with wet feet and hitting pot holes that destroy my suspension and wheels when I can get it all shipped with no shipping fees

In summer, I will use an errand as an excuse to drive the Porsche or my DD because I like to drive

There are benefits to online shopping but at times it's hard to see them - How many people barely get of the couch in their off time now?
I really like going to the store to buy my groceries.

I re-watched Jackie Brown (1997) recently. The Malls were full of people and you get to see a busy record/CD store that sold cassettes!
We got on fine before buying online and it's certainly been a boon for Chinese manufacturers.