Look, I Love Online Shopping
Let me set the scene. It’s 2010, I’m 28, and I’ve just moved to New York. I’m a junior editor at a fancy magazine, making enough to afford rent in Brooklyn if I don’t eat. And then I discover e-commerce. Suddenly, I can buy a $12 pair of jeans from some brand I’ve never heard of, and it shows up at my apartment in 36 hours. It’s magic.
Fast forward to 2023, and I’m a senior editor with a mortgage and a kid. And I hate online shopping. Not all of it, but enough that I’ve considered going back to physical stores full-time. Which, in New York, is basically a death sentence. So, what happened?
Subscription Box Hell
Let’s talk about subscription boxes. I love the idea of them. I really do. The subscription box review comparison sites make it all sound so easy. But here’s the thing: I signed up for a beauty box last year. It was $87 for three months, and I thought, “Why not?”
First box arrives, it’s great. Second box? Meh. Third box? I open it, look at the contents, and think, “What even is this stuff?” I mean, who uses a face mask that smells like pumpkin spice in July? Not this girl.
I try to cancel. But oh no, it’s not that easy. I have to call customer service, wait on hold for 214 minutes, and then argue with some guy named Marcus—probably not his real name—who tells me I have to send an email to a specific address. Which, of course, I never do. So, I’m stuck paying for a box I don’t want. Thanks, e-commerce.
The Great Delivery Debacle
And don’t even get me started on delivery. I ordered a blender from a major retailer last Tuesday. It was supposed to arrive by 8pm. I wait. No blender. I check the tracking. “Out for delivery,” it says. 9pm comes and goes. 10pm. Nothing. I call customer service, and they tell me it’ll be there “soon.”
I wake up at 6am the next day to find the blender on my doorstep. Great. Except it’s not the blender I ordered. It’s some cheap knockoff. I call again, and this time, I get a different Marcus—maybe the same one, who knows?—who tells me I have to send it back and wait another week for the correct one.
I’m not even mad. I’m just… done. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to burn the whole system down.
A Friend’s Horror Story
My friend Lisa, she’s a nurse, she had a worse experience. She ordered a pair of shoes online. They arrived, she tried them on, and they were the wrong size. She wanted to return them, but the return policy was a nightmare. She had to print a label, pack the shoes, and ship them back. And then, of course, she had to wait for a refund.
“It’s like they’re trying to make it as difficult as possible,” she told me over coffee at the place on 5th. “I mean, why can’t it be as easy as buying the damn things?”
Which… yeah. Fair enough.
The One Good Thing
But it’s not all bad. There are some things I love about e-commerce. For example, I can order groceries online and have them delivered to my door. That’s a game-changer. I mean, I still have to unpack them and put them away, but it’s better than dragging a kid through a store.
And I love that I can read reviews before I buy something. I mean, sure, some of them are fake, but for the most part, they’re helpful. I remember reading a review for a vacuum cleaner once. It said, “This thing sucks.” And I thought, “Well, that’s what it’s supposed to do.” But then I read the rest of the review, and it turned out the vacuum was terrible. So, I didn’t buy it. Thanks, anonymous reviewer.
The Future of E-Commerce
I’m not sure what the future holds for e-commerce. I mean, it’s probably not going away anytime soon. But I hope it gets better. I hope companies start treating customers like humans instead of wallet.
I hope delivery gets faster and more reliable. I hope return policies get simpler. And I hope subscription boxes stop sending me pumpkin spice face masks in July.
But until then, I’m gonna keep complaining. Because that’s what I do.
About the Author
Sarah Johnson is a senior editor with over 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. She’s a mom, a New Yorker, and a self-proclaimed e-commerce skeptic. When she’s not editing articles, she’s probably complaining about bad customer service or trying to cancel a subscription box she never wanted in the first place.
