One of my friends tweeted about this “revolutionary” new shopping experience: you go to a shop to buy some clothing, but don’t actually schlepp your purchase home with you. They “ship” it to you from some other location.
They call it “a store architected for the digital era”.
Well, aside from the “other location”, this is not actually a new concept. As I understand it, department store customers back in the 50s, 60s and 70s could buy things, then go to the customer service department (remember that?) and have their purchases delivered. So they didn’t have to schlepp.
Then, as department stores consolidated, so there are only about two actual companies in the US, that whole delivery thing went the way of the tea room and nylons with seams. Deliveries cost money, and that wasn’t the sort of “service” that the conglomerates had in mind.
So I find it amusing that this is being touted as a paradigm-shifting innovation. (Jeez, the tech world loves its paradigms. But only if they’re in the process of being shifted.)
My mom and grandmother would be completely befuddled by that notion.
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