I feel my preferred way of shopping will never happen again. I love wandering in and out of many stores, or in the case of a department store which we have few of in New Zealand, from area to area that have different brands. I usually do this near the start of a new season for a while to get a feel for the colours and shapes, and then I think about what I already have at home that might be similar colours or shapes, or something new that might just be perfect to breathe new life into some tops or pants I already have.
I can do this online as well of course, but not a lot of different brands at once like I can in our small local mall or a couple of my favourite boutiques.
In the past I haven’t felt bad that I don’t usually buy when doing this, because I do buy in the end, and have given my business eventually to several of those stores especially the boutiques. I have had tremendous success in the past couple of years with doing this and then taking my lists of clothing with me to think of what will go with the new thing. I guess it’s my way of doing Angie’s “organised emotional shopping”.
But now, I am going to feel really bad about taking up a space entering a store just to browse, with records of who I am, hand sanitising, distancing, etc. I am going to lose my anonymity! Sometimes the SAs recognise me but they don’t know my name unless I am on their database, which I am on as few as possible.
I have said before that I don’t have that much brand loyalty because I have so much choice, but I think my choices are going to be severely constrained, not least by trying to buy NZ made or at least NZ designed/China made in ethical ways, or my fave Australian made brand Philosophy Australia.
It might be just as well that I have really slowed my purchasing, buying only the one pair of loafers since 7 December, except for my specs.
Luckily the fave boutique chain, that sells that brand amongst others, has an excellent website that I suppose I can browse, which then tells you “Where in store” of the several reasonably local branches it has.
Anyone else going to really mourn B&M anonymous browsing?
