This morning I saw an article on our local site Dayton.com with the headline “Update: First three months of 2019 post nearly as many store closings as all of 2018”. Uggghhhh. Love reading good news first thing in the morning!
Since, as we discussed in my last post, I am REALLY OLD, I no longer enjoy hitting the mall like I used to. However, I was really sad when Sears closed last year because I enjoyed going twice a year and buying ALL THE CLEARANCE LANDS’ END. All of it. I am legit super super super sad about that lost opportunity!
But as I read the article and thought about my shopping habits of late, I realized something: the death of retail as we know it may rest squarely on my online-shopping shoulders. OOPSIE!!! You see, I haven’t shopped in-store for Christmas in YEARS. At some point the pressures of having kid birthdays on November 16th and December 17th and hubby’s birthday on November26th in addition to Christmas just got the nest of me, and I let Amazon and Target.com take over. NO REGRETS! I did recently shop for Joshua’s birthday in-store (Gamestop, yo) on THE DAY BEFORE his birthday, because it took me forever to get him to tell me what he wanted. LOL! And it was in the middle of the day and I was the only one in the store…this is how I like to shop. Ha!
But anyhoo, recently I upped my online shopping game thanks to FREE RETURNS on Amazon. OMG BFFs!! It’s amazing! You see you guys, I am about to do something CRAZY! I am going to VEGAS! I’ve never been, and I am going for FRREEEEE thanks to MONAT! Yep, my shampoo slinging earned me a free trip, and I leave Monday. I AM SO NOT READY, logistically (I’m getting there!) But I am SO EXCITED! {again, if you want to learn more about Monat, do your shampoo shopping online, or have hme send you a free sample, you can request your freebie at this link: http://bit.ly/fixyourhair}.
When I found out that I had earned my Vegas trip with a few of my shampoo BFFs, one of my first thoughts was “CRAP I NEED A NEW SWIMSUIT”! So, I ordered one from my old standby, Lands’ End. BUT…when it arrived, I hated it. It was NOT flattering, and I didn’t have a lot of time to order another. So I went the Amazon route, and discovered suits by CupShe – and FREE RETURNS! HELLO!!! I ended up with two suits that I LOVE, and combined they were cheaper than the one I got from Lands’ End! Here are the two I got, this yellow one is my fave: https://amzn.to/2UdbtjN
But I also really like this one: https://amzn.to/2Fxi6Ei
Both of these suits keep me covered and comfy and hold in my c-section gut. WINNNN! I also bought one other one that ended up being WAAAAY more low cut than I realized, so I sent it back to Amazon. I dropped my package off at the UPS store at about 11 am, and my credit was issued to me by 1 pm. I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING! WHAT DARK MAGIC IS THIS???
Soooo next, I needed a cocktail dress to wear to our Monat fancy Vegas reception. For this, I turned to Emily, because I haven’t needed a cocktail dress in YEARS and I was pretty sure she had one or seven I could borrow. I narrowed the choices down to these two and had my Facebook group vote.
My group chose the navy one, but I don’t have SHOOOOOES to go with it. Because I have flat feet and a bad back, I really have VERY specific dress shoe needs. I can’t do a high heel (See again: OLD OLD OLD.) Sooo I did INDEED have to leave my house and hit the retail stores for this. SIGH. After two days of wasted efforts, I came home empty-handed. A friend had also suggested to me that Amazon had free returns on SHOES too, sooo…this morning in a last-ditch effort, I ordered these: https://amzn.to/2Wt8sJL
They will be here on Friday, and I’ll keep you posted on how they worked out. But I am so glad that if they don’t, I can send them back and know I will have my money back QUICK. If they don’t work, I am just going to go with the teal dress, because I already had shoes to go with those and I found some pretty, inexpensive jewelry to go with it when I was out shoe shopping (already had jewelry for the navy dress, go figure.)
So…to all the stores closing, I’m sorry. I REALLY AM! I honestly feel bad about it…but dang. How can I turn down online shopping with super low prices, great quality and FREE RETURNS!??!?!?
What are your favorite online shopping destinations? And can we talk about ClickList and Instacart/Shipt?? YASSSS! WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!
