Shop till you drop in a click

That’s what e-commerce allows us to do as millions of housebound folk have discovered this pandemic.

IT happens every day without fail: someone arriving at my front gate in a van, a big truck, a car or on a motorbike to deliver a package.

There are days we get as many as half a dozen deliveries and no one finds it strange anymore. This is the new normal for buying goods which many households are familiar with, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.

While not exactly alien, shopping online wasn’t something I, as a baby boomer, was comfortable with, unlike my adult children, especially my second daughter, Kelly.

When it came to shopping, brick and mortar shops were the only way to go for me. I couldn’t trust paying for something I had not seen or touched. And it was out of the question to buy clothes and shoes online in particular, since I had to try them on first for fit and comfort.

I was also rather prejudiced against online shopping because my first purchase in 2018 was a dud. I wanted wireless earphones to exercise with and my son recommended a branded pair online. He made the order for me and when it arrived, it turned out to be fake with missing functions.

After that, we had to go through the hassle of filing a complaint, getting a refund and returning the product.

But change came to me after I retired. It started gradually before growing into a gush during the pandemic. With time on my hands and out of curiosity, I checked out different shopping websites and found myself lost in the wide array of goods available.

My first buy was a pack of silica gel to keep my mum’s medicines dry. It was a safe bet at RM10.83, even though the delivery fee was RM4.66. I made the order on Aug 24, 2020, and it arrived on Aug 26.

Not bad at all.

I got more ambitious and started buying stuff for my kitchen: storage racks, reusable baking sheets, loaf pans, a pastry rolling mat and brushes. I moved on to other products: yoga exercise bands, tea lights, house slippers and floor mats.

Then came a decision to buy a product that would cost almost RM700. This was a ramp to be placed over the steps at the end of my front door corridor. This was November 2020.

In the past, whenever we took my mother out, we would wheel her to the steps and she would have to walk down those two steps and totter to the car.

But this simple task was becoming impossible for her. Those two little steps were dangerous obstacles even with us giving her support.

That sent me scouring the shopping sites for a sturdy ramp so we could wheel her over those steps. There were several models but most were short. I needed one that was at least 1.5m long for a gentle slope.

I finally found one that met my requirements but only one piece had been sold and the review was not informative.

There are tricks one must use when buying online. First is to read the product specifications very carefully – they can be very badly written – and click on the right buy options.

Next is checking out what other buyers have to say about the product. Most aren’t really helpful as they rate the product to get points and focus on delivery time and the packaging.

But there will be some that actually share if the product is up to expectations. Looking for these reviews is the most time-consuming part of online buying for me.

But I really needed the ramp so with a leap of faith I made the order. It took a month-and-a-half to arrive from Guangzhou, China.

When we unboxed it, I sighed with relief. It was as advertised: made of rust-proof aluminium, the length was correct and it was indeed sturdy. Eight months on, it is as good as new.

We have become a family of dedicated online shoppers.

Kelly, who used to buy mostly small pieces of jewellery, has expanded her scope to electronic devices like monitors and tablets she needs for her job as an artist for a gaming company.

She also bought storage shelves, a rocking chair and a work table which she assembled herself with the help of her brother, Nick. That was an unexpected plus: my kids becoming more DIY savvy.

Her older sister Jillian buys toiletries and health supplements (so do I) online.

Of late, Nick has been hit by online shopping fever.

This happened after my built-in vacuum cleaner broke down. After 17 years of use, the motor had given up the ghost. We were smack in the middle of the full movement control order and I knew even if the repair guy could come, it would cost a few thousand ringgit to replace the motor.

Nick, who has very sensitive skin that’s prone to eczema, went online and found a cordless vacuum cleaner with good specifications, including filters that can be cleaned and reused, unlike a very famous brand that requires filter changes, and at a fraction of the price.

He then came across a dust mite cleaner with impressive specs and at a good price. We used to spray to kill dust mites on our mattresses which Nick didn’t like as it was chemical and didn’t actually remove the mites.

He bought the device and, my goodness, I love the product. I was gobsmacked by the amount of very fine dust – probably our own dead skin cells – that was sucked out of my mattress.

The list of things we buy online is endless. Nick has a new desk chair, an air purifier and his latest obsession, a UV light mosquito trap. He’s like a trapper who gleefully counts his kill of mosquitoes every morning.

I started with buying non-perishable products but now I am a regular at ordering my frozen food from an online store that has proven to be very reliable.

I resisted buying fruits and vegetables online because I still prefer to pick these myself from my local sundry shop.

But spooked by the infectious Delta variant, I made my first online order of fruits and veggies last week.

This part of my life has changed forever. Now I automatically go online when I need something. The latest was buying Mum’s adult diapers which ran out yesterday. I used to buy them from the pharmacy but I got a better deal online.

That has been true for most products. Prices can be lower, delivery is fast and the quality is good. There are delivery fees but these are comparable to paying for petrol and parking fees if I were to drive out to the shops or mall, not to mention the safety and convenience.

It’s no surprise therefore that the Department of Statistics Malaysia reported a growth of 30% in e-commerce transactions in the first quarter of 2021 to RM254.6bil from RM195.9bil in Q1 of 2020. That’s just in the first three months of the year, and the growth will only get bigger as more people discover the joys, convenience and security of online shopping.

Yes, getting refunds can be annoying but the need to has been rare in my experience, and it’s guaranteed with the reputable sites.

E-commerce has been a blessing during the pandemic and it is definitely here to stay.

How brick and mortar shops and malls will compete once restrictions are lifted will depend on their ability to offer a shopping experience that can’t be found online.

I believe they can. Like watching movies in cinemas, physical shopping is a social behaviour that is a form of therapy that allows us to de-stress, interact with others or even to do it alone for a change of scenery.

And I must say I still like window shopping that requires me to move my feet and not just my fingers.

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.