I was standing in Walgreens waiting to drop off a FedEx package when I looked around and realized something:
The place felt like a ghost town.
Not closed. Not empty because it was 2 AM. Just… dead.
And it got me thinking about how much shopping has changed in a ridiculously short amount of time.
People will DoorDash themselves a gallon of milk now.
Not groceries for the week. Not a giant Costco order.
A gallon of milk.
And by the time you add the inflated item price, delivery fee, service fee, tip, and whatever other mystery charge gets thrown on there, you’ve somehow turned a $4 errand into a $14 experience.
All to avoid walking into a store.
And somehow we’ve decided this is normal.
Convenience used to mean making life easier.
Now sometimes it feels like we’re paying a premium to remove every tiny inconvenience from our lives.
Toothpaste. Cold medicine. A bag of chips. Coffee. Milk.
Things we used to just… go get.
Maybe I’m old, but I still kind of like going somewhere, buying the thing, and eating the ice cream in the parking lot like a normal person.
And the weirdest part is this:
Shopping didn’t die.
We still love buying shit.
We just changed how we do it.
The mall is quieter. Walgreens feels empty. Department stores are shrinking. But at the exact same time, people are sitting at home watching live sellers on Whatnot auction off beauty products, fragrances, clothing, collectibles, and random closeout merchandise for hours at a time.
They’re chatting. Bidding. Impulse buying. Following sellers they like.
It’s basically QVC for people who grew up with TikTok.
If you’ve never watched a Whatnot show, you can check it out here.
That’s my referral link, so I may receive a credit if you sign up.
CheapCheapCloseout.com actually supplies inventory to some of those live sellers, so I get to see this shift from the other side too.
The demand is still there.
People still love a deal. They still love discovering something new. They still love the thrill of buying.
They just don’t necessarily want to drive anywhere to do it.
Which makes me wonder if we actually became lazy…
Or if technology just trained us to believe every minor inconvenience deserves to be eliminated.
Waiting in line?
Unacceptable.
Walking through a store?
Too much work.
Cooking?
Someone else can bring it.
Going out to buy milk?
Apparently a logistical nightmare now.
I’m all for convenience. I use it too.
But there’s something a little dystopian about a world where we’ll spend an extra $10 to avoid a seven-minute errand, then complain that everything is too expensive.
Maybe the death of in-person shopping isn’t really about bad stores.
Maybe we just stopped wanting to leave the house.
And maybe the future of retail isn’t less shopping at all.
It’s just shopping from the couch.