Opus 2026-015: Big Box Suicide

I am about ready to totally give up on shopping in person.  I went out this week looking for something.  The only store in the area that I thought might have it is Best Buy and I went in optimistic.  I was looking for a small MP3 player.  The one I have seems to be malfunctioning.  I had bought it at Best Buy a few years ago and figured I could replace it there.  I even stepped out of my comfort zone and as soon as I got in the door, asked a person who seemed to be standing there looking for people to help where I could find the MP3 players.

Then the difficulty began.  First of all, she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about and started showing me some expensive, complex devices, which were on a shelf nearby.  I pulled out my old MP3 and showed it to her and then she finally got the idea.  She didn’t know where they would be in the store.  It turned out, after she went to her handheld device and did a search, that there weren’t any in the store.  They had a lot of choices online, but nothing in the store.  Then she helpfully told me said I could look around if I wanted to, maybe I would find something.

She tried.  She wanted to be helpful.  Once she understood what I wanted she knew how to find out.  There was nothing she could do.

This is at least the second time that I have gone to Best Buy looking for things which used to be on the shelf and the only place they seem to be available is online. I also noticed that there seem to be a lot more room to walk around.  Fewer shelves.  The shelves that were there had a lot of gaps on them.  I found myself again wondering why I bothered coming to the store.  I wonder if the young lady waiting to help me understood that when the big box closed her job would be gone?

I’m a dinosaur . I like to pick up something that I’m interested in, turn it over, heft it a few times, and make my decision.  You can’t do any of those things online.  You don’t even know if the picture they are showing is the object for sale.  I really don’t like having to print out a label and drop it off at a location where it can be returned.  I know that seems to be the way the current generations do it, but I don’t like it.

I may have to just bite the bullet and accept the fact that I’m going to have to get used to it.  I’m sure that I can do it.  I’ve ordered things online.  I have returned things that I ordered online.  There’s a lot more variety but a lot of returning also .

The choices in shopping are getting slimmer when it comes to going to stores.  I wonder how much of this is because of things like inventory taxes and property taxes which make it hard to keep a store open.  I wonder how much is because people are shopping more online.  I wonder how much of online shopping is because the big stores are committing suicide.

I guess we can use the buildings for homeless shelters if nothing else.

homo unius libri