Projo Offbeat Blog

Today is CyberMonday, a day when shoppers disguise themselves as workers, drive to offices throughout the country, take over computers and do their Christmas shopping online.

The beauty of shopping online at work is that as you tap relentlessly on your computer keys, you leave your boss with the impression that you're working diligently on pulling your employer out of the red. But in reality, you're being far more efficient as you pull a half-dozen of the nation's major retailers out of the red.

Every year we seem to read stories about online shopping increasing by 500 percent (which isn't hard to do when the practice started about seven years ago with three shut-in computer geeks). But I'm guessing that online shopping will never become as popular as shopping at brick-and-mortar retailers unless somebody finds a way to recreate the same circumstances that traditional shoppers enjoy.

Those circumstances include:

-- Driving around a suburban mall for 45 minutes and burning gas at more than $3.00 per gallon while looking for a parking space.

-- Weaving through the masses with three young children in tow, almost as terrified that you'll lose one of the kids as you are that you'll miss the last discounted Transformer in the store.

-- Losing sleep for the opportunity to get in line early enough to get into a scrum when the store's doors open.

-- Waiting in a long line for the chance to hand the equivalent of a week's pay check to a cashier whose response isn't "thank you," but a "stop-bothering-me" look.

Just remember, when it comes to Christmas shopping, it's not the money spent, or even the thought that counts. If you want to give somebody a gift that really matters, you've got to suffer.

Comments

janet said:

I read about stores opening at 4am. Who is crazy enough to shop then? Their relatives should buy them a brain transplant.

Link | November 27, 2007 12:40 AM
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