Retail Fix

Portsmouth’s Gunwharf yesterday, Southampton’s West Quay today. I am certainly getting my fill of shopping malls this month.
And we are only just a week into March, and with still more family birthdays, including my own, coming up before the month’s out, who knows how many more hours I will spending in such places, tempted by the many wares before me.
Some predict that internet shopping will eventually kill off the time spent in retail therapy on the ground.
Oh yes, I am no novice to internet shopping, but judging by the number of people carrying carrier bags I still see in places like this, I cannot see that much dumbing down of actually going to the shops just yet.  Nor is internet shopping all that it is made out to be if our experience is anything to go by.
Some goods we have bought over the internet have left us eagerly awaiting the morning call by the postman, or courier. Other times the experience has not been so favourable. And we long ago gave up trying to order groceries online — finding an agreeable delivery slot, being fobbed off with substitutions for what we had actually ordered, and time spent over a computer keyboard scouring endless lists of groceries to find what we wanted, is certainly not all that it is cracked up to be.
Yes, there are times when it can work favourably. But give me the chance to actually see, and maybe feel what I want to buy, and I am much happier.
So, West Quay today; I can probably miss out on visiting a shopping mall tomorrow, but there’s every chance you might find me at the local convenience store or one of the supermarkets in town, at some time during the day.

They call us a nation of shopkeepers. Long may that remain!