It has come to the attention of many that the world of online shopping is not as it seems. What appears to be a snugly fitting winter coat may arrive as a toddler’s summer cardigan- or, if you’re lucky, it may come just as it’s shown in the picture, the only catch being that the image you saw online was to scale. Somehow, the rules of dating sites now apply to shopping sites: the product doesn’t always match the picture. You may order a thick coat in December expecting it to last you through the wintry chill only for it to arrive in August. The point here remains: is the Internet really a safe outlet for fashion purchases?
Natalia Amadeo doesn’t think so. As an A level economics student, her area of expertise lies in analysing money- and how people go about gaining it. One thing that, as a consumer on neutral ground, she has noticed is that online stores seem to always have a sale on with an arbitrary and somewhat pressuring deadline. It’s hard to miss. An active countdown, she says, is always seen at the top of the site to convince shoppers that if they don’t buy products from the site in that very moment, they won’t get that free shipping, or 20% off, or a useless item of jewellery that comes with purchases exceeding £50. But interestingly, even after said consumer feeds their credit card information into the empty boxes that lie in wait, the sale still exists, its deadline reset to lure the next victim to a costly fate.
Take this as a cautionary tale. If it’s something you could simply buy in real life, is it really worth the risk? Or are we just the beginning of an unindustrious sub-species of shoppers? Whichever questions we may ask, it seems nothing can expedite the arrival of that jacket I ordered last month.
