I like Walmart. They have a wide selection of products that are easy to find and have prices that are lower than many other stores such as the local supermarket. But I hate going there. The aisles are crowded usually with rude people who stop their carts in the middle of the aisle so you can’t get by. The service at the Deli is excruciatingly slow and they mostly don’t bother with the take-a-number so if you daydream, someone will jump in front of you. The checkout process is horrible, and, of course, they stubbornly refuse to enable Apple Pay, preferring to make the risible claim that the non-starter Walmart Pay is more popular than Apple Pay.
Still, I found that I went to Walmart more often than other stores with similar merchandise. That changed with COVID-19. Now I don’t go to Walmart—or any other large stores—at all. I order my groceries from the local supermarket and have them delivered by Instatcart. Almost everything else I buy from Amazon. I can get virtually anything I used to buy from Walmart from Amazon, usually at a lower cost. I’ve realized that there was no reason to drag myself to Walmart when I could simply order the same thing from Amazon and have it brought to my door.
To get to the point of this post, having to rely on having food and other goods delivered has made me wonder whether other folks will reach the same conclusion that I did and just stop going to Walmart and other walk-in stores. Yes, yes, our Aunt Millies will always want to try on that dress before they buy it but Aunt Millie is literally a dying breed. Younger people and even some of us who aren’t so young have no problem ordering clothes on-line and sending them back if there’s a problem. And yes, even I like to poke around the Apple store just looking at things but I also just ordered a couple sets of AirPods from Apple’s Website.
Much has been written about how COVID-19 has probably changed how we work forever. I think it’s likely—or at least possible—that it has also changed how we shop. Some people, to be sure, will prefer to go to an actual store—especially grocery stores—but there will probably be fewer of them and if the number is low enough, chain stores will find it more economical to move completely on-line.