By Chuck Woodbury
ROADSIDE JOURNAL
After two years of full-timing, Gail and I recently bought a home just north of Seattle, in the “burbs.” My home office is on the second floor. I overlook a quiet suburban neighborhood, with a straight view to the end of a cul-de-sac.
All day long I watch cars pass by, usually every few minutes. Neighbors walk by often with their dogs. It’s fun to watch moms walking their young children each morning to the nearby elementary school.
What has amazed me the last couple of weeks has been the parade of FedEx and UPS trucks stopping at homes to unload packages. Some deliveries come in small vans, even passenger cars: I assume these are “final mile” deliveries from Amazon.
Watching the vehicles come and go, virtually every hour of the business day, makes me wonder how many people are simply ordering online this holiday season rather than shopping at big box stores, malls or from their home town merchants.
Amazon changed everything when it introduced Amazon Prime, with its free two-day shipping. More than 100 million people now have a Prime account, me included. I can tell you that Gail and I have purchased at least three quarters of our holiday gifts from Amazon. It’s simply too inconvenient to hassle with traffic to get to a store, where the merchandise is often more expensive anyway. As it is, we locate the product at Amazon.com, order it, and a day or two later it’s on our doorstep.
I never know what will show up each day, and when something does, it’s always exciting to open the box and see what treasure is inside.
How much of your holiday shopping will you do online this year? Please take a moment to answer the poll.
We are “half-timers”, back at the sticks-n-bricks for the winter. I love shopping online because I really don’t like to shop. I don’t enjoy crowds, traffic, lines, etc. I do love sitting in my PJs with a cup of coffee as I search the world for interesting stuff to share with friends and family.
We aren’t full-timers. I am more on-line oriented, my wife is more mall oriented! Buying toys, and the hated clothes, for our great grandkids is normally in a mall. Smaller, perhaps more expensive items are more on=line – considering handling and postage an issue in the decision.
My wife and I had Christmas a couple weeks ago with the whole extended family and gave the universal,one size fits all gift. Cash,no exchanges,wrong color,I don’t like it ,and no wrapping. I believe in today’s world there is the feeling ,I need it,I’ll buy it. Not like fifty years ago when a gift was a real surprise and Christmas was a day to look forward to.
I’m on the road with family in Georgia, Montana and Oregon. Ordering and having it delivered to them is easy. I put my name on the package so they know it is a gift and can’t be opened until I get there. I spent Thanksgiving with one son and will spend Christmas with the other one (flying to both) so there is no stuffing of suitcases or extra baggage to check.