Seattle, WA — OK, first off, we tricked you. There is no genius trick to get you to save money on Amazon.com. If you see advertisement for such things, ignore them. We’re sorry. We want to talk with you about something else and should just take a minute.
We know you love Amazon.com. Let’s face it, it’s easy to find things and the product reviews are really helpful. Amazon and a few select online retailers have capitalized on the Internet that has taken traditional “brick and mortar” businesses by surprise. Not really by surprise. And everyone knows by now that these traditional shops and stores really just sat on their asses while other modern businesses shifted their operations
Oh we have to give outfits like Sears and JCPenny an “A” for effort, but let’s face it, they’re going to be gone soon and you’re going to be buying your next pair of shoes, if you haven’t already, from Amazon.com. Sears tried to get you to “buy it online and pick it up at the store” and JCPenny tried to turn themselves into the budget clothing equivalent of an Apple Store. Miserable failures.
So as you eagerly track your package’s progress as it was dispatched from one of Amazon distribution centers to your front porch, there’s something you already know: it’s gutting both large and small retail America. We not telling you this to make you feel bad. Well, maybe a bit, because you probably should feel a little guilty as each one of your purchases contributes the upcoming retail apocalypse which is moments away. Like probably this year.
And this is all apart of modernity’s twice-told story of “destructive capitalism.” However this time, there’s not much to fill in those empty Kmart and Sears lots. What do we do? Tear them down and put up hastily thought-out art projects and dog parks?
So there’s not really much you can do. You can make a few attempts to do downtown and purchase a knife or a new scarf or whatever, but you know these are token gestures. And unless local retail stores can figure out how to compete with the buying and distribution power of Amazon, there’s little hope there too. So keep buying the way you do, just realize that what you do contributes to the change around you and more importantly, the old way of business has proverbially left the train station. There’s no going back. You are participating in the change.
