JGoode

Fa La la la Laaa, Lah Lah La Laaaaa!

Yes, indeed the shopping season has begun. I haven’t personally made it to the malls, holiday drivers scare me… actually mini van drivers scare me and there seems to be more during the holidays.

I have, however, been shopping online since Black Friday. Yesterday being “Cyber Monday”, I again enjoyed shopping without the frustration of bad driver traffic. – I’ve been mostly window shopping, adding items to the cart and then toodling off somewhere else.

I love the comparison shopping available when I shop online. From prices to shippinng costs to delivery dates, every merchant out there thinks they have the best deal. What strikes me as the most entertaining is when a retailer makes this big to-do over their latest sale and I find a better price within 5 minutes somewhere else.

HA! Do they think we won’t look? Do they believe there is so much brand loyalty to a specific shopping location that we won’t take a moment to make sure we are getting what we want for what we want to pay?

I think usually *they* are correct in their assumptions (or market research if that’s the case). Most of us don’t like to spend an entire day shopping.. online or not. Most of us value our time more than a few bucks saved here and there. But think about it.. it adds up.. time and money.

I spent nearly 5 hours shopping Amazon for a variety of gifts. I found everything I wanted, plus a pile more I hadn’t initially set out to find. I was willing to spend the time looking because I figured, buy from a single location I’ll probably end up saving on shipping. When it came time to check out, in a matter of moments i cut my order down nearly in half because shipping was still entirely higher than i really wanted to bother paying.

Five hours wasted? Definitely not.. now I have new ideas to hunt for when I actually head to the store.

As far as brand/retailer loyalty… here’s one for ya. I love Walmart. many of the items on my shopping list can be found at Walmart so that’s exactly where I headed first on Black friday. I headed for online shopping to avoid the crazy 900 gazillion other shoppers. I spent approximately 1 hour searching, and successfully finding, everything I wanted… then they’re server went “down for maintenance”.

Mid-day a server issue? Yeup.. not a joy for holiday shopping happiness. And me, the “on a mission” shopper didn’t want to wait. Walmart ended up missing out on 300.00 sale because they we’re ready to handle the holiday shopping load of Black Friday.

All in all I absoluely love holiday shopping or gift shopping in general. My favorite part of it all… the wrapping. Oh how I wish the penguin were on wrapping paper. 😀

— just a friendly reminder, fun holiday shopping can always be had at JGoode Designs and right now you will receive FREE SHIPPING (yes, I must follow the masses on special deals.. and the penguin too).

Happy Festiveness to you.

[tags] black friday, cyber monday, holiday deal, shopping, gift, holiday, jgoode[/tags]