The Easy Nightmare that is Online Shopping

Preamble

I have never been what you might call a shopper. I’m not a committed browser. I’ve always searched for particular things when I needed or wanted them, and I’m pretty much the same online, although I browse more. In my ageing lazy-bones, I do not fancy, nor could I cope with going from store to store seeking anything. The very thought of a trip to the vastness of Bunnings or Ikea fills me with dread.

As for trying on clothes, well, I have long forgone that unpleasant, sweaty task in stores with tiny dressing rooms. I don’t wish to surrender my ageing body to the surrounding mirror gaze ever again. Still, as you might imagine, there are downsides to trying clothes on and assessing quality online.

My Shopping Story

There are continuities in my shopping habits, one of which is to change furniture more frequently than most. There is a reason for this, which has more to do with my circumstances than the shopping medium, as the trifecta of office chairs below indicates. I bought the chartreuse office chair in the gallery below from a posh office furniture store at Mile End. It nearly got old, but I stopped loving it before it had a chance to do so. I ordered the other two online.

The white chair from Temple & Webster was very smart, but it wasn’t comfortable. I am now sitting on the Office Works black and red chair on the right, but — dare I say it — it is also uncomfortable. All this may remind you of a little girl, beds and three bears. But there are differences.

First, my old body is hard to please nowadays. Second, buying such items online might be easy, yet it is a trap for innocent players. The nightmare is facing up to your errors. In choosing the bits and parts of this chair online, as I had to do, I failed to consider its size and weight properly. While attractive enough, it is big and too heavy to roll smoothly on my carpet! All we can do, as the adage has it, is live and learn. But there’s even more to it than that.

Choosing Furniture is a Serious Business

My penchant for changing furniture may have you thinking I’m a dilettante, but I’ve come to see that it reflects my current state of being. Let me unpack that, starting with a poem.

When I left Darwin, where I lived and entertained for many years, I had to relinquish a second-hand treasure: my beloved Jarrah dining table, which had so much history inscribed upon it.

Rapid changes in lounge furniture years later, after I moved to Aldinga Beach, marked my initial ambivalence about settling back into South Australia while I still yearned for Darwin! At first, I had an apple-green three-piece lounge setting, which I soon replaced with two expensive American oversized camel-coloured armchairs. After a few months of discomfort, I sent them for auction, and the pair brought an embarrassing fraction of what I’d paid for them.

I replaced the California chairs with a lovely brown and tan leather and microfibre L-shaped lounge that settled in very well, and that was when I seriously got into writing — honoured by the chartreuse office chair.

And, Again

Furniture similarly symbolised my rocky start to retirement unit life in Glenelg. Clearly, the brown L-shaped lounge had to go, as it wouldn’t fit into any unit in Manson Towers. So, too, did my pre-bought fashion item, a King Living press-button but totally unsuitable sofa bed. After heaving those giant back cushions on and off morning and night (when they dangerously filled the floor space), I soon switched to a single bed—which I still have nine years later!

Pre-ordering, even in-store, is a risk best avoided. It is hard to imagine how small some of these units are until you are in them.

As Serious Nonsense describes, since losing the sofa bed, I’ve gone through three armchairs. Next month, a white leather electric recliner, more suitable for old ladies, will replace the Scandivanian Ruby Leather.

Shopping Satisfies

Shopping, in various forms, pertains to different stages of life, but it also gratifies inchoate yearnings.

We all tend to buy for emotional reasons at times. Shortly after my mother died, I bought an expensive Coogee cashmere cardigan that I wore for many years. Without Mum, I was desolate and in need of comfort. I had no intention of buying anything when I stumbled into the Coogee shop on a side street off Adelaide’s Rundle Mall, but I treasured that cardi until it was threadbare, and I had to discard it.

I was so sad when Coogee went out of business. Today’s airport rip-offs simply do not match up in quality.

As December 1994 marked 30 years since Mum died, I hope you’ll forgive me for including here a little tribute to her adventurous spirit in old age.

Shopping Online is still Shopping

Whether in a showroom or online, shopping is easy. Credit cards work instantly when you pay for something. Online, however, refunds — if you can get one — take between five and ten working days. Hmm.

Most regular shops and stores have well-designed websites, and online business websites are equally tantalising. However, some are utterly disreputable, wherein lies the hidden nightmare of online shopping. A good website can lure money from your bank as fast as any shop might empty your purse, but the risks differ.

Online, we sometimes get it right, and, at others, we can lose as drastically as any gambler.

Getting it Right

I adore Persian rugs and have owned a few small ones with the Bokhara design. Browsing carpet websites on dull days lifts my heart and excites my passions. It takes me back to the carpet stores I visited in India, piled high with rugs of all qualities, shapes and sizes, including exquisite silk pieces of craftsmanship.

It is an immense privilege to enter those stores (better than any website by far), where staff and management treat you like someone significant, offering you a seat, a cool drink or a cuppa while peons roll out rug after rug for you to view. It’s not easy to extricate yourself without buying. I am sad that I didn’t buy a silk rug that I loved when I had the chance. Here, they cost many thousands of dollars more.

Yet a couple of years ago, I found a little treasure: a small Zardozi embroidered rug, a glittering delight that I found online one day when aimlessly browsing Persian and Indian rug sites. (Yes, I do browse online, where it is so much easier to fill tedious hours among tantalising possibilities.)The gilt frame I chose to set it off cost as much as the rug.

You can’t see the gems shining in this photo, but they do. The poem below speaks of the Zardozi tradition.

Getting it Wrong

As simple as online shopping can be, it is easy to get it wrong. While I moon over rugs to fly away on or bags (my other favourite thing) to gather my personality in one convenient package — you know, phone, license, credit cards, poems to read and, lately, pills and potions rather than mirror and lipstick — there are pitfalls.

For example, take clothing. I once ordered what looked like a long, loose Jacob’s striped cardigan that looked gorgeous online, only to receive a shrunken piece of rubbish in tacky, unrecognisable fabric, its sleeves so small they could only fit a broomstick. Returns and refunds were impossible.

To avoid such a nightmare, choose your sites carefully. Check them out, and ask Google if there are risks or complaints about them. The same garment is still frequently advertised on Instagram by several different ‘companies’. All appear legitimate and offer lovely things, but pictures tell lies.

I now buy my clothes from Taking Shape. I order online, but I know my sizes and recognise the fabrics. Even if I get something wrong, returns are guaranteed, and you can even return by post.

Online Banking

I do all my banking online, and when a company is reputable, the bank is there to help you recover your money. However, you can’t trust official-looking renewal notices arriving via Australia Post.

Last year, I received a notice to renew my three-year business name registration for $198. I paid the company online, only to discover soon afterwards that the actual cost of business name registration through ASIC was $98. I fought with them but failed to get a refund. I only discovered my expensive error after a second company sent a similar renewal notice closer to the due date, causing me to check things properly.

Read the fine print; these things have twisted policy wording to entrap you.

Grocery Shopping

I even mess up my Coles orders at times. Only a couple of weeks ago, I accidentally bought a giant pack of Uncle Toby’s oats, enough for me for two years. I gave it away. Then, I purchased a four-litre liquid laundry detergent that I could not even lift to decant and had to ask my cleaner to do it for me. This week, I bought Arnott’s Shortbread Cream biscuits instead of Scotch Fingers! Yes, both are shortbread, so I’m not totally losing it, but these silly errors put a frightener on a girl in her 80s. 

Deliveries

The worst nightmare for me with online shopping is the endless procession of deliveries. Living as I do in a ‘gated’ high-rise building, I need to stay in to let drivers into the building, which is a pain. Fortunately, Australia Post, Coles and other entities now give notice of a two-hour window for when things will arrive, but it’s tricky if you want to go out on that day or have plans for the time they allocate. I guess it is the price I pay to avoid shops.

I still go to Woollies, Coles, Baker’s Delight, and Caruso’s Greengrocer for top-ups or to the chemist for a visit, so my soul’s need to shop in person remains satisfied.

I’ve yet to find an online way to fill the car with petrol.

Happy Writing

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