Throwback Society

Hey guys, lovely to see you again; this chapter is all about online shopping and how once there was no more online, shopping became something of a challenge for those who got used to just ordering something and having it come right to their door. Once the online stores realized they had to find a new way to sell their products they quickly started looking for new ways to showcase their items and get people to buy them at the same prices as online. It was not easy for some stores to stay open and a lot of them had to close down due to lack of business, these stores did not know how to conduct a business that was not online and so fell to the more business savvy stores. I will say this, it did get rid of a lot of people who thought they could start a business without knowing what they are doing, it really takes research and know-how to open a store and keep it running. Even I had a little online business selling handmade jewelry that I had to give up because I didn’t have the means to open a shop and trying to get a booth at a swap-meet was impossible unless you know someone.

Let's talk about that for a minute, swap-meets became this huge industry because with the internet gone people had nowhere to go to sell their products; huge online sites where people could have gone just got turned into swap-meets. Instead of having the seller pay them per item listed, the seller would now be paying a monthly booth fee that was locked in for up to a year depending on how long the seller was going to have their booth open. I tried the swap-meet thing but I realized it was not for me I had too many things that I had to do and when I did find the time to work on my jewelry I didn’t have the time to go to my booth. The small business community really came together when the internet crashed and lifted each other up; a lot of them decided to join forces and open shops together because they had similar products to sell it was easy for them. Rather than pay for a booth they would just pool their money and rent a little shop in a strip mall or open a shop at an actual mall and collaborate on a new name that they all liked.

Speaking of malls, they were at one point slowly dying due to the rise of online shopping but once the crash happened they became more crowded than ever because people now had to go out to buy things again without looking them up online first. What you got was what you got and if you didn’t like it you could not write a review for people to see or make a video about it either, all you could do was complain to friends and family about it. The mall once again became a place for people to just go to hang out and browse for things they might want or to just get out of the house for a while even if you had no plans to buy anything. People needed to get back to how things were before the internet was even a thing because this is our new normal regardless of how that may sound; having to actually go to a store to find something you need is how it has to be. Stores and shops have made a resurgence because of the crash but they were always there, deep down as much as people love to shop online, they love walking into a shop and looking at all the items on the shelves.

This leads me to grocery shopping, people had gotten so used to just ordering everything online they even ordered their groceries online which I didn’t think was the best idea anyway, I like to go and feel what I am going to be putting in my mouth. Online grocery stores were a big thing because you didn’t have to wait in a long check-out line to buy your food; you simply add everything to your cart and then pay with a credit card, the food would be delivered to your front door. Once online shopping was no longer an option the big wholesale and chain stores became packed with people trying to buy what they needed, it was like black Friday every other day. Overcrowding and fights were a regular occurrence for a lot of stores because everyone was trying to get the same things for the most part; I loved going and seeing all the people in the stores. The more people had to go into shops for things the more employees the stores had to hire and at first, they tried to remain the same having two to three lines open but eventually, they had no choice but to open more.

For the most part, online shopping was a great idea because you could buy mass quantities of items without having to leave your couch, however, too much online shopping can cause people to become lazy because they don’t have to leave the couch. Online businesses were hit the hardest with the crash but quickly found a way to bounce back with the pop-ups of swap-meets and malls as a way to sell in person rather than through the internet. The resurgence of the mall was an outcome of the fall of the internet with people having to go out to find what they needed and not just looking it up and placing an order to ship directly to them. Online food buying was also hit hard by the crash because people relied on not having to go to the store and hoping that what they needed would be there, now people have to just hope they are lucky to find what they need. Overall doing things online was a more convenient way but it made us all lazy and overly reliant on a system that could and did disappear at any time, leaving people to figure out their next move.

Once again we come to the end of another chapter in the saga of Throwback Society, I want to thank the ones that made it this far in the story and I hope that you come back for the conclusion to this whole thing because that is coming soon. I know that I say thank you a lot when it comes to my writing but that is because I know that you didn’t have to read what I wrote and you did so I will continue to say thank you every single time and mean it too.