It has taken me several days to calm down from Black Friday Shopping Madness this year, so that I can speak about it publicly without losing my "good girl " reputation (slight smile). For 3 years in a row I have spent Black Friday in my nice,
warm jammies shopping for Christmas for my GIANT family (including extended
family) from the comfort of my own home.
No lines for me. No freezing,
cold temperatures. No parking
issues. No searching for what size I
need on racks that have been destroyed by greedy shoppers searching for their
size. No (other people's) kids screaming and
fussing. No traveling from store to
store to find that perfect gift only to find out they are sold out, or that
they never had the item to begin with. The
idea of myself or my family being trampled over or shot in public does not
appeal to me at all.
As much as I prefer to shop online, I ALMOST, yes, ALMOST quit
the online method FOREVER. Yes, I was
THAT angry. It started out fine on Black
Friday. I had 5 sites open and was
simultaneously choosing various things, sipping my hot tea (laughing at all the "foolish people" shopping at stores) and keying all my
discount codes in to find the cheapest “bottom line” price. I was so proud of my progress down my shopping list. Then the 2nd site locked up. It was the one site that said I must order by
NOON to get my 50% off STEAL of a DEAL.
It froze. WHAT in the world??!!! I
began again. It froze. I began again. I fought that site for 2 hours and it was
mighty close to NOON!!! NOT COOL,
Express Fashion (I so outted you Express Fashion). Unacceptable!! I called the help line—of course, they were “experiencing
a higher volume of calls than normal.” Oh. My. Word. I typed in the credit card number and hit “submit
order” and it froze for the 90th time. I could not get through to the help line, so
I was unsure if that particular purchase hit my credit card ALL 90 times I hit “submit
order” or even if it had gone through at all by NOON. Did I get my steal or
not??? I was so ANGRY. This was strike
ONE.
Strike TWO was when I ordered 4 PERFECT, glorious, LARGE and
completely unrelated items from 4 different companies and they came in the mail
a few days later only to be PUNY!! Why
in the world do they enlarge photos and make the items look so grand only to be
so small!??? I swear it's a conspiracy. What a letdown! So….all
that money I saved on FREE SHIPPING and discounts went out the window because
they generally deduct whatever shipping cost to return the items out of my
credit they will put back on my card.
Grrr!!
Strike THREE was when I ordered some stuff from amazon from
a company that had 5 stars and I never received the items. The tracking on the items show them being
shipped the day after Thanksgiving. We
definitely should have received the items by now. It is SUCH a pain to file the claims on
non-received items!
Generally speaking something is OUT if there are THREE
STRIKES, but let’s just say I’m a forgiving soul. …Or I could be a little more
honest and say I am very lazy and I REALLY, REALLY HATE SHOPPING in this town. So
in my world, there are FOUR strikes. STRIKE
FOUR is the SPAM!!!!!!! For the love of
money, MY INBOX is FULL of SPAM from all of these companies I ordered from on
Black Friday!!!!!!!! I order online ONE
day a year and I’m cursed for the rest of the year with SPAM??!! BAH HUMBUG!!!! Don’t get me wrong. I do not mind being sent coupons. But places like Children’s Place and EXPRESS
FASHIONS and GYMBOREE and Pottery Barn and VICTORIA SECRET and DICKS and ABC
Distribution are sending 10 emails a day.
All of their messages go something like this, “We are extending the sale
for one more day…This is your last chance…This is your last, last chance….This
is your friends and family’s last chance….This is your last, last, last chance
to save 75% off and free shipping on your entire order.” And (this could be strike FIVE) for those of
you out there ordering from DICKS SPORTING GOODS, do not believe them when they
tell you the item has FREE delivery. It
is a LIE. What they mean by free
delivery is they will give you a $20 credit on your bill and you will pay the
difference. So an item that is large,
that typically costs $100 for shipping, that says “FREE SHIPPING” did not
actually have free shipping. I paid $80 for shipping once I looked at my
bill closer.
So I will explain why I said I ALMOST quit online shopping
forever. Let’s just say, next year, it is
GAME ON!! I ALWAYS learn from my
mistakes! I’m no rookie now. I’m already developing a better course of
action. I am not turning in my mouse just
yet for a 4am-lounge-chair-line in town. I will NOT be laughed at by all the smart people at home shopping in their jammies!
I am opening a 2nd email address so I can still track my
orders. I will let that 2nd
email address be spammed away and it will not clutter my iPhone. For the larger items that I do not want to
pay shipping for, I will send Tim (wink, wink) since he is so strong and DREAMY
and willing to help. If a site does not list
correct dimensions of items, I will not order from them. And as far as the website shutting down, I
refuse to order from that company again.
Nothing from any website is so unique that I can’t purchase it from some
other company that has better website service.
There you have it. What doesn’t
kill me will only make me stronger!!!!
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