Why I’m Only Buying Things Online In 2020

Last year, for 2019, my new year's resolution was to buy pre-owned products (instead of new) wherever possible. If I needed more clothes, I had to go to the resale shop instead of the department store. If I needed new furniture, I had to go to the consignment store instead of throwing my money into the incinerator we call Ikea.

There were some obvious exceptions, of course. Food, toothbrushes, and underwear are hardly appropriate for pre-owned purchase. Technology that was just released was also an exception, since you can’t find a used iPhone that only came out yesterday. But exceptions aside, I forced myself to purchase everything pre-owned.

The benefits were numerous: It was better for my wallet, it was better for the planet, and it allowed me to avoid supporting big-box companies like Macys, Target, and, well, Ikea.

Once August rolled around, I started to flex a bit on the rules. I allowed myself to purchase a messenger bag from Amazon that I couldn’t find pre-owned. But for the most part, I stuck to it. Most of what I own now, I got pre-owned.

What was amazing about this resolution wasn’t the resolution itself, but that it forced me to learn a new way of living. It forced me to figure out where the clothing resale and thrift shops are in town, how to purchase and fix up furniture, and where I can find a griddle someone else didn’t want for $5. Now I can get the same stuff I want without contributing to the consumerist, materialistic culture of America. And, every single pre-owned thing I purchase is something that doesn’t end up in a landfill, polluting the environment.

Most importantly, it showed me that I really don’t need to shop in order to make me happy — or even need it in my life at all. Things don’t need to be new out of the box to serve their purpose in your life.

In the spirit of this resolution, I am making a new resolution for 2020: To buy products online instead of in-store wherever possible. Here’s why:

It’s Better For My Wallet

If you’re anything like me, going inside a store — whether a grocery store or a department store — is a dangerous gamble. When I go inside a store, I might emerge with only what I intended to buy… or I might emerge with several dozen things I didn’t.

When it comes to online shopping, though, I’m not vulnerable in the same way. The fact that I have to wait for shipping makes impulse buys a lot less tempting for me, so I don’t make them. And my wallet is thankful.

Also, when I’m in a store, I don’t look at prices. I don’t price compare. I just see what I want, grab it off the shelf, and take it to the register. But when I shop online, I price compare. And often, products are available more cheaply from online retailers than they ever are in-store. Purchasing things online will save my wallet in this way as well.

It Will Save Me Time

Lastly, and most importantly, it will save me time. One of the most annoying things about living in the west is all the time spent driving; driving to store after store, in strip mall after strip mall.

When you’re with someone else, it gets even worse, because each person has their own set of stores they want to “quickly stop by.” Combine this with the above tendency to leave the store with more things than you need, and it’s easy to watch an entire day get sucked up by pointless shopping.

When one shops online, this is short-circuited. There’s no driving time. There’s no time spent walking around eyeballing products nobody needs. A few clicks, and it’s done.

It Sucks the Fun Out of Buying Things

In America, consumption is entertainment. Shopping malls are not just places you find goods, they’re places to have fun. An American mall doesn’t just have stores, it has a food court (and sometimes movie theatres, too).

This is so screwed up. Purchasing should not be fun. Products are not the meaning of life, they are just the means to an end. When you’re spending the majority of your leisure time purchasing products instead of using them, something has gone seriously wrong with your life.

Purchasing things online just isn’t fun the same way going to the store is. You don’t leave your house, you don’t get to look at and touch all the pretty products, and you have to wait for shipping in order for it to get to your house. Boring.

Guess I’ll have to amuse myself in other ways, like going out for tacos with friends or reading a great book.

I Can Still Buy Pre-Owned Products

When you search for products on Amazon, there is a little option along the side that most people notice called Condition. You can select New or Pre-Owned. When I search on Amazon, all I have to do is check that little Pre-Owned box and bam, I get the cost savings and environmental benefit of a pre-owned product with the convenience of Amazon Prime.

And if I can’t find something on Amazon pre-owned, that’s no problem. Thanks to eBay, there’s an entire world of pre-owned goods for me to purchase, like the meditation cushion and statue of Buddha I bought last year to support my meditation goals.

Exceptions

Not everything can be purchased online. I am going to make exceptions for:

• Clothes. I’m extremely sensitive to clothing fit and fabric quality, and it makes trying to buy clothes online too much of a pain in the ass. My local Goodwill has all my clothing needs covered anyways.
• Groceries. While services like Amazon Fresh and Kroger pickup exist, they have long wait times. I’m not the kind of person who meal plans, or even plans what time they’re going to eat, so that makes these solutions a little too inconvenient for me.
• Furniture. Have you seen those shipping costs? No way I’m paying that, sorry. That kind of distribution is bad for the environment.

Criticisms

Purchasing everything I buy online might be problematic for several reasons:

1. Some people say online retail is driving small businesses to extinction
2. Some people say online retail is bad for the environment (because shipping is increasing carbon emissions)
3. Some people say Amazon is a terrible company that drives employees to collapse and violates privacy rights of customers all the live-long day

To the claim that it is bad for small businesses: That’s only true if you’re purchasing from Amazon instead of purchasing from small locally-owned businesses. But what percentage of your purchases in-store would you say come from small local businesses?

Do you shop at a family-owned grocery store? When you want the latest Apple product, do you go to a locally-managed tech store? I don’t think so. You go to Kroger and Best Buy.

To the claim that it’s bad for the environment: The impact shipping has on global warming depends on your location. I am an Amazon Prime member in a major midwestern city. There are distribution centres so close to my house that certain Prime products ship same-day. Given how centrally located I am in their distribution network, I doubt my marginal impact on Amazon’s carbon emissions is going to be very high (as long as I stick to small items, not furniture). It’s not great for the environment, but it’s hardly the same as driving a Hummer.

And about driving… when I buy online, I’m not hopping in the car to make a twenty-minute drive to a store in the suburbs. I no longer have a car (I totalled it in an accident last week), but I’m sure the carbon emissions produced by me driving myself all over the suburbs are much, much higher than the carbon emissions produced by Amazon employees throwing an additional box on a truck.

To claims about Amazon being an evil company: Not all of my online purchases are going to be from Amazon, but most of them are. And… honestly, I have to agree. The stories I hear about the working conditions in Amazon distribution centres are not great. And their privacy violations scare me to the point that I’m uncomfortable being in the same room as an Alexa.

But they’ve got me by the cojones. The shipping service they provide is too valuable for me to want to live without it. Free shipping on such a wide variety of items has allowed me to get many speciality items I would have otherwise had to send away for too many times.

They’re not the only ones who have me cornered. Apple has done the same thing; Apple is so known for their poor treatment of workers at Foxconn that the Foxconn situation was the subject of one of my graduating essays for my business degree — but that doesn’t stop me from purchasing a Macbook whenever it is time for a new computer. The iPhone, iPad, and Macbook are too powerful to a travelling creative for me to pass up. The only way in which supporting Apple is forgivable is that every other major tech manufacturer commits the same labour violations as well.

You won’t meet anyone who is more supportive of individual action than me. When people complain about the evils of corporations, I’m always one of the first to jump in.

But there are some corporate problems which just aren’t going to get solved at the boycott level because it is too much of a strain on the life of a consumer to boycott. Cars are a great example: Nobody wants the planet to burn, but we all need to get to work somehow. As long as public transit is inadequate, people are going to need cars (no matter how much they wish they didn’t).

Summary

If this new years resolution goes anything like the last one, I’m going to end up breaking it in little ways by August.

But if it goes anything like the last one, it’s going to drastically reduce the amount of time I spend driving around and “running errands,” which means it’s doing what it’s supposed to: Helping me change my life, one bad habit at a time.