As you know, most of my blog posts are medically-related. But you would have been in a coma if you weren’t aware of my love for sports, in particular the basketball and football teams of Indiana University. IU is my alma mater, and I owe a great deal to Indiana and its namesake university for the seven years they spent training me to be a physician.
To say that is to alert you that this blog post also has nothing to do with medicine, health care, or sadly, Indiana University. What it does say, however, is for many Americans, there has been a huge, yes, huge, shift in how we shop and give gifts, and unless you’ve lived under a rock, you are well aware of this change.
This major societal change has come about because of two events that have influenced the American way of life as much as anything. The first of these is the invention, and introduction into everyday life, of the Internet. Who, today, doesn’t have a computer, iPhone, iPad, or access to WiFi, and is constantly connected to the cyberworld and everything in it. We use the Internet for everything, and shopping and product research are some of the major uses.
The second of these seismic societal shifts occurred on May 15, 1997, when Amazon.com, Inc. went public. Another huge, huge event. Over the past 28 years, Amazon.com has done nothing except grow and grow, add new businesses and new divisions, and completely change how Americans shop and give gifts. Amazon.com has almost reached monopoly status because of its phenomenal growth and expansion. As I said, though, shopping and gift-giving are the biggest changes.
The number of items I have bought in a retail store, other than COSTCO, in the past year can be counted on one hand. Amazon sells an incredible variety of products, and whenever I shop, I have never failed to find what I’m looking for on their site. Their prices are incredible, too; anywhere from 5%-25% lower than regular retail. The convenience of Amazon is also a major positive. Shopping from the comfort of my home, or really from anywhere, having it shipped for free if you’re a “Prime” member, and receiving it the next day, or very soon after, are great benefits. Purchases are packaged to prevent damage and are delivered directly to your porch. If your purchase is the wrong size, or not completely right, procedures are in place for returning the merchandise and receiving a refund completely hassle-free. I know; I’ve had to return purchases twice recently. Just take it to the UPS store with the QR code I printed from their site, hand it to them, and receive your refund. Books, medications, plumbing supplies, Snapple peach tea, cranberry juice, wound dressings, and a Norelco electric razor are just some of my recent purchases.
The main subject of this post, though, is the change that has occurred in gift-giving. Along with purchasing items online, Amazon offers shipping to any person, anywhere for little or no charge. This Christmas that’s what I did. This year I had 16 people I wanted to give gifts. From my comfy chair, I made certain I correctly entered the names and addresses of the recipients in my Amazon address field. I purchased each person’s gift, chose the gift category box at checkout, chose the address where to ship it, then put the charge on my credit card. The process took less than 5 minutes for each. Amazon offers a card identifying the sender, too, so I filled that out with an appropriate greeting. Amazon does not offer wrapping for most gifts so my friends will receive gifts that are unwrapped in a cardboard box, delivered directly to their porch. It’s trouble-free.
All of this is convenient and hassle-free. It is incredibly impersonal, though. No hand shake, no face-to-face thank you, no hugs or kisses. No pretty red bow around a box wrapped in colorful Christmas paper. It gets the job done—shopping, packaging, and delivery. Your friend has his/her gift, and your credit card balance just increased a whole lot. This has been my routine for the last several Christmases, and it has been a successful process. Everyone has gotten a gift, and I haven’t had to spend time in a store.
It’s not just Amazon that has changed retailing. Uber Eats delivers restaurant food, Safeway delivers groceries, COSTCO delivers anything they sell, and Papa John’s delivers pizza. All of these deliveries were initiated by orders placed “online” over the Internet. The products all came from “brick and mortar” buildings, but the number of businesses with physical facilities is rapidly dwindling. Macy’s closes stores, California Pizza Kitchen closes a number of restaurants, this chain files for bankruptcy, or that chain ceases business operations altogether. It’s the new normal in retailing. Amazon has been the biggest winner in this cultural change, but Americans have found a more convenient, less costly, and efficient way to shop and give gifts. The “personal touch” is gone, but buyers, givers, and receivers don’t seem to mind. For someone with physical limitations, like myself, it is a welcome change. I have found, however, my credit card balance has no physical resistence to the increases that come so easily. Shopping and gift-giving online seem to come very easily. With the meteoric growth and earnings Amazon.com has experienced, maybe that’s the point.
