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9 years ago
January 22, 2009
A li'l bit of shopping
Ever since I went to the US, I got used to online shopping, particularly for electronics that came as deals on popular websites like deals2buy, edealinfo, etc. In fact many of the people out there would've bought at least one of their many gadgets on one of those sites. I know I did. I bought a whole bunch of stuff. You know the saying, Give an Indian a deal and he can't refuse it. It's pretty much held true. I've bought stuff I didn't really need simply because they were on a good deal and I didn't want to pass it up. And slowly the online shopping transcended just the gadgets. It went on to stuff for the house, like some pasta pans or photo calendars. Books of course were always on that list, courtesy Amazon. But soon the equation threw in clothes and all, especially if you were pretty darned sure about the size. And so it went. In fact, my roommate in Iowa would order groceries online too and for a few extra bucks, it was all delivered "garden-fresh" to your doorstep with no effort lost. Personally I think web shopping is just convenient. You can leisurely look at everything, read reviews then n there, and make a thoroughly informed decision. And most of the time you are spot-on. Sometimes, you need to return stuff and usually that's pretty hassle-free too. Why am I talking about this? I miss it!! No, not that France has a dearth of stores that will send you your stuff home.. they are all too darned expensive anyways. The US had deals, which could be seen online and it made sense to have them shipped for a very low fee or usually even for free. Here, the charge you a shipping, a VAT and anyways everything is just as expensive as the store that there is absolutely no motivation to web-shop. I recently discovered that Overstock was shipping stuff to France. I was delighted for exactly the thirteen minutes that it took me to select a beautiful Anne Klein Peabody coat, a steal for 21€. The shipping would be under 10 bucks, I naively assumed. And off I went to Checkout To discover that the shipping was 33€, the VAT was 15€ and the total was 69.90€. I was semi-heart-broken. Who pays more than twice the amount of the actual item for shipping and handling? Not me. Anne Klein is going to have to wait.
6 comments:
that saying does hold good more often than not :) The convenience and the ability to shop around before 'checking out' is the biggest plus. Specially after the India trip. The moment I got into a store, there would be a couple of sales reps storming towards me, following my every action, offering recommendations, tempting me with stuff I did not need, and basically making me feel extremely conscious. And with my mentality, I always end up buying something cos it makes me feel very awkward otherwise :(
Priya -> my feelings EXACTLY! The salespersons in India have a way of following you around and sort of nagging you. That's not around in the US where the maximum people ask is "Everything okay?"It's the same here in France. You are FREE to shop. But you don't get reviews. It's soo much cooler online when you can read customer reviews and experiences and pick up a few tips along the way :)
Hey! Jaya.. i've been followin ur blogs for sometime now... n i really must say its worth a read...
n abt shoppin online.. u bet nothing's as comfortable as it can be... n makin us a lil more lazy as well.. Haha.. :)
Ramya -> Thanks a ton! Yes, technological advancements are designed to kill us by making us lazy.. Haha. Please keep visiting!
Priya - I beg to differ over the sales-persons-bugging thing, as most of the times I would have to call a salesperson to ask about a product. If this is Mumbai-specific, then I donno, but otherwise, I disagree.
Sachin - I did not mean it in a bugging way at all, sorry if I sounded that way :D I was just stating what happened, and that based on the kind of person I am, I find it extremely difficult to shop. Because most often I was just going in to check out what was new or what had changed since my last trip there, with no real intentions of buying something specific. But I always ended up buying something cos I did not know how to say NO. The lack of 'space' was what made me uncomfortable. I certainly agree that they are pretty helpful, and do make good suggestions.
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