In-store shopping VS online shopping

I recently got addicted to an online shopping website based here in Montreal that a co-worker and fellow fashion freak introduced me to: www.beyondtherack.com. Very similar to ebay, the website posts items for sale and puts a timer on. You generally have 72 hours to purchase the item and can hold things in your "shopping cart" for up to 20 min. The feeling of urgency is apparent, and you even get a sense of it being a game. Each sale begins at 11:00 am. This gets the shopper into the habit of knowing that every day they can count on a sale being introduced at the same time. Prior to that, a mass email gets sent out around 10:00 am promoting those daily sales. This gets the potential buyer excited and ready to put their game gloves on. For me, just putting things in my "shopping cart" was fun in itself: The thought of knowing that I was preventing other people from getting what they wanted was a thrill.

A sneak peek of what it looks like inside

What gets me about this site is their marketing tactics. You can't just go onto the site. You have to be "invited"/ put on a waiting list, which is blasphemy, as just about any Jane can request to be put on the list, and in about 4-7 days time you'll get "accepted". This right here, is the hook. Knowing you can't just go there makes people want it that much more. Next is the email blasts featuring up coming sales, strategically sent out at a certain time. Followed by a sale starting automatically at 11:00 am, they are successfully getting you, the consumer, into a habit. They are able to unconsciously create a schedule in your head and by god, IT WORKS. For a few months I was hooked. I spread the word, I bought items, and I knew that when I looked at the clock and it was 10:47 am, that it was almost time to see the latest sales.

The drawback: As far as shipping and handling goes, this site gets a royal thumbs down. Of the two items I ordered, I had to wait 3 weeks for one, and 6 weeks for the other. If you don't get the item until weeks and weeks later, well, it loses it's appeal and I just don't care anymore. Frankly, it makes me downright angry. So, from then on I boycotted the system.


The conclusion:
I still love the feeling of walking in a store, surrounded by all things material, with neon, nausea-inducing lights and little to no air circulation. I love frantically looking for the next best thing, and finding it at a fraction of the price. I can be found in the back corner of the men's section at Forever 21 trying clothes on top of my clothes because I don't have the patience to wait in line for the change rooms. To me, shopping in stores will never die. It will take a long time for online shopping to come even close to satisfying my instant gratification. Take me to the outlet malls and show me where the sales are, for I'm an old school shopper at heart.