Flutterby™! : That frantic feeling of What can I buy 2013-11-27 00:31:06.569595+00

That frantic feeling of What can I buy

2013-11-27 00:31:06.569595+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

That frantic feeling of "What can I buy tonight and tomorrow so that I don't have to go anywhere near a store again until 2014".

Between Amazon and Tim & Tom's, Delmonico's and Kramarczuk's, I avoid setting foot in chain grocery stores except perhaps once a year, usually when I need to buy a bunch of the pre-made pie-crusts for a batch of pasties. But once Amazon started selling things like deodorant and toothpaste, I've almost entirely given up on Target, which is good because this year they went straight from Halloween to Christmas.

In any case, I strongly recommend you search out small local retailers in your area. There may not be as many as we have here in Minneapolis (I suspect the relatively low housing / property costs here make smaller stores possible), but any you do have are almost certainly worth supporting.

We've got a vibrant downtown which has a ton of stuff going on, with lots of small retailers. But downtown still gets overrun during the Christmas season.

And the things I need that I haven't planned for are almost always things I need to finish a project now; hardware store runs, cooking items, that stuff.

At risk of piling on. Online shopping renders retail's version of the Hajj (black friday and it's lesser known cousins cyber monday and retail zombie tuesday)mostly inert.

I remember one of the Gibson novels going on about the pizza delivery guy being part seal team, ninja to get through the urban jungle for delivery. I'm only too happy to pay a few more yuan to risk the necks & nerves of delivery drones.

For me the problem is the plague.... err shoppers spread into the traffic systems and tend to overwhelm resources such as parking, restaurants, coffee, boozy watering holes. Everyone flush your toilets at the same minute or turn off you main breaker at the same time. Why does everyone(economist, retailers)think a retail spike is good?

So to your problem Dan. Risk/Cost vs reward. Pay higher price for overnight delivery(or less for longer delivery time) vs foraging in the wilds with retail zombies. I bet there is a youtube Walking Dead/Christmas Shopping mashup by now