What do you think about online shopping?

I only buy online if I can't find an item in the local shops.
I've had a couple of bad experiences with online shopping, the first was when I ordered a shirt, but when it arrived it was nothing like its picture so I had all the hassle of re-packing it and going down the post office to send it back to get a refund.

Second experience was when I bought a pair of shoes online, they arrived and were fine, but then I began getting truckloads of junk catalogues through the post from that firm AND from all sorts of other firms who they'd handed out my name and address to, what cheek and a waste of trees!
The only way I eventually got it stopped by getting myself taken off their mailing list was by pretending to be my brother and tell them I'd died..

I love online shopping. I did some just this morning.

All of the major department stores sell dresses online.

You can also buy dresses on ebay--just look for those that are sold as "New with tags" from sellers with 100% (or close to it) positive feedback. On ebay you can get some fantastic buys on evening dresses or daytime wear from sellers who offer deeply discounted designer label or name brand clothing--they may be last year's designs, or department store overstocks, but styles really don't change much from one year to the next.

Happy shopping!

I feel rather sorry for people with small shops in medium or smaller towns already battling with big box stores. Internet shopping, while interesting, is another arrow to those small shops.

There are benefits with small individually owned and operated shops, benefits to the life of the town and benefits to the comfort of the customers and lookie loos. Among other things, everywhere doesn't become the same.

But in the meantime, our poster is a promotion poster - that's usually tagged as call and response spam or c and r spam.

The small local shops really battle with the large shopping malls, at least around here they do. I used to do as much shopping as possible in my small local stores--I knew the owners and sales help, I knew their merchandise, and it was a really friendly and pleasant shopping experience. I still try to shop locally when I can, but the parking is difficult, and meter-maids or auxilliay police appear out of nowhere if you are one-minute overdue at the meter, and the parking fines are hefty. That alone becomes a major deterrent for me.

I agree with you--we are becoming "homogenized" when we lose these small local establishments, and restaurants, and pharmacies, and shops.

How can you tell? I've never heard of call and response spam before.

We have a lot of it here. It is probable that some small fraction is misrepresented, but I'd bet on most - just plug call and response into the search window, or, if worse comes to worse in the tiny but often useful google search link at the top of the page.

I've owned an unsuccessful gallery and studio in Venice, CA in the seventies - that was the way of that street back then (now primo, but it took decades of up and down - I remember all the broken windows and some shootings - and then a million years later in a small town to the north, where I and another design partner had to split away even though at least one client told us we were the best gallery between sf and seattle. Problem, not that big a population of buyers, though a lot of arty types.

In the first case, the LA Times wouldn't review for six months (oh, probably never). In the later one, the buying population was not so large, more like wee. Neither of us were internet advertising savvy then, and spent the small advertising money locally.

I've never admitted to being money savvy, but I've had fun.

I'm one of the people that looks at every thread, however glancingly, using New Posts. Lots of crappo happens here early morning, New Mexico time. Some is blatant spam, some is slow flatulant spam.

For some items, indeed many, I go direct to online. I'm not greatly put off by local prices, but geeze Louise, they just don't have the inventory unless you want to shop three or four stores. You still might not find what you want. Often, it's there somewhere, but the employee has never heard of what you want, and sometimes acts like the customer is a bit dim because of their own lack of knowledge.

I would much prefer to shop local and have what I want right now. I've given up on them and consider Amazon to be the best thing since the electric starter.

I trusted Ebay for a long time. But I would recommend it to online shoppers who used to purchase wardrobes and novelty items.