This. Actually, I would buy a cheap guitar (but not from Amazon), say $400-500, for a purpose like having one to place when visiting relatives at Christmas. But I wouldn't buy a nice guitar without inspecting and playing it.
I would think the sensitivity to this would depend a lot on family size. Shopping for just myself... it doesn't matter much. Shopping for a family of 4 would be very different.
1) When I really need it within a couple of days and can't quickly find it locally
2) When it isn't carried locally (the local retail stock is a lot thinner than 20 years ago)
3) If there is a BIG price difference -- used to be common but now much rarer. As you say, Amazon's prices are often worse than buying locally.
4) When I need it shipped somewhere else. I usually spend Christmas, for example in another city, and it is impractical to bring a bunch of presents. Amazon is good for situations like that.
I dislike Amazon, but they are now so dominant it is hard to avoid them.
I dislike Home Depot's politics so much that I make a point of never going there.
In general, I prefer buying local, because it makes my community healthier -- more jobs, directly and indirectly, more options to buy something this afternoon if I really need it. But the reality is that many items are already very difficult to buy. Some of that was true 20 years ago, but it's gotten much worse.
Just talking about why some people would want to use delivery even if they live close that’s all. Personally I can do without the chaos of Costco ha plus I go in person to my local grocers plenty in between.
I don't think that works either. I'm not a meal planner, but I will usually just make do with food I've already bought. Nothing appeals? I might eat cheese toast or yogurt.
Not a European, but this rings true for me in the US. I'll go out and get something, in part, because it is less lonely and feels more attached to life, to the world. Endless deliveries actually make that worse. I started buying more things locally in part because of that.
It's also one of the reasons I don't really like working from home.
I'll go out and get something, in part, because it is less lonely and feels more attached to life, to the world.
When I was young, I worked in a couple of supermarkets. There were a lot of people who came in each day and bought one thing. Not because that's the one thing they needed that day, but because going to the supermarket was their only interaction with other human beings.
I was young, so I thought they were just poor planners. But there was this one guy who I knew would be in the dairy aisle at 4:35pm every day, and I started having his cup of yogurt ready for him when he walked through. It was he who explained to me why certain people were low-volume regulars.
There appears to be a lot of noise in the Tiobe already. What does it mean if Visual Basic is shooting up and C is near the top? They are surely in no way measuring the same programming market -- so who cares?
