Shopping By Photo
As walk-in, onsite, brick & mortar buildings, and the age-old activity of buying in person get phased out, while remote selling by photo takes over as the main way to shop, do you think we’re in for increased cost, heart-break, and aggravation?
Shopping by photo isn’t new by any means. Catalog sales have been around for many years. My wife bought her first two sewing machines by catalog. The first one in 1975 from Montgomery Ward, the second one in 1990 from JC Penney, and both by catalog without touching them before buying. The main difference between then and now is that back then we only bought brand new things. Used items weren’t even in the catalog. Nowadays, we buy both new and used items from our new “catalog”, the internet, without being able to touch, smell, or view the item from every angle. When buying new things remotely, most times if the item has a flaw, there will be more of the same item on-hand to exchange for the flawed one. But with used items, especially vintage sewing machines and their parts, there is usually only one of the item. No alternates or exchanges, at least at that Seller.
But this “buying by remote control” makes me wonder about how we’re going to handle the transportation costs for both new and used items. When buying in person, we have the expense of transporting ourselves to the item. Often times, once there and upon inspection, we decide not to purchase the item. And I’m not talking about just used items, but new items as well. So, when we decide not to buy the item after all, the transportation expense to get us there is still an expense, and still our expense, isn’t it? Anybody ever drive to a store to buy something, but when you decide not to buy it, have you had your transportation expense refunded to you?
Since the Buyer always pays for the transportation costs one way or another anyway, are remote Sellers in the future going to have to price their items with the understanding that an increasing amount of their merchandise will be sent out and returned with no income from one or more of these transactions? And what about the loss of revenue to the Seller while his/her merchandise is in transit? The Seller can’t market the merchandise to other Buyers while it’s in transit out and back. The shipping company will be paid for their service of transporting both ways instead of one, in what could become the new form of hands-on buying.
It almost sounds as if this would be a good time for Sellers to invest in a shipping company instead of selling merchandise. But, if they do, who’s going to sell us merchandise, especially our used vintage sewing machine goodies?
CD in Oklahoma