Confessions

Shopping is an addiction like any other, it can be expensive or destructive, and it has its highs and lows. I crave it in the same way that an alcoholic craves a drink. I can shop for hours and not have to eat or pee. It is like shopping gives me superhuman powers. I shop when I am blue, when I am celebrating, when I am lonely, when I am alone, and when I am with friends. It doesn’t matter why I decide to shop, no matter what mood I am in, shopping just makes me feel better. I even shop online during finals as a study break. My most stressful class in law school was Property. I would reward myself for making it to each early-morning class by browsing hautelook. Online shopping during class became such a regular habit for me that the guy who sat behind me would comment, “you should definitely get that top…I can see you wearing that.” There was something soothing about looking at clothes on the internet when my professor would go on and on about future interests at a pace that was impossible to follow. I felt like no matter what he was saying, no matter how much I didn’t understand, I knew I understood the beauty of getting designer fashion deals during a 36 hour online sale. Hautelook was my retreat from the reality of law school (except for the day when I was looking at a vest with the label, “vested interest”).

My obsession with shopping started with my mother. If I ever have to go to therapy about it, I could honestly blame it on her (although I wouldn’t actually go to therapy about my habit, I would just shop some more, and that would make me feel better). When I was a girl, my mother would pick me and my sister up from school every Friday and she would take us to South Coast Plaza. Our tour of the mall would start at Via de France where we would pick up a long baguette and a sparkling apple cider and we’d walk around the mall until our giant piece of bread was finished. We were such regulars that I had a personal shopper at Gap Kids by the time I was in the 3rd grade.

My mom would find any reason to buy us clothes. New shoes for the first day of school (because we had uniforms), a new dress and hat for Easter, Christmas, and of course, matching outfits for Mother’s day. The best was getting a new something or other for every A. I really managed to cash in on the clothes for grades, which is probably why I am in full support of bribing children as a form of motivation. Hey, it worked for me. From grade school to grad school, I still take myself shopping after finals. I buy myself  a splurge item that I have been coveting if I think I’ve done particularly well, and I “binge shop” impulsively if I feel like I’ve bombed an exam. Either method is equally fulfilling.

I am also an enabler. My friends call me when they have purchased something really pricey to help them get over their buyers remorse. They know they can count on me to make them feel better about the sticker shock. Sometimes I tell them they got a good deal because they actually did. Sometimes I tell them their purse was worth the expense because one day it will be an heirloom that they can pass on to their hypothetical daughters. Most of the time I make them feel better about their purchases because their shopping experience has made them feel good, and that euphoria is worth supporting.

Despite my genuine love for shopping and my long-term relationship with the mall, I have had some not so great purchases, and most of them have occurred online, so I am putting some tips out there so that you don’t fall into the same shopping traps that I’ve fallen into.

THINGS NOT TO BUY ONLINE:

1) Sunglasses- unless you have tried them on in a store, don’t buy them online. It is tricky to tell if they are going to go with your face shape or fit your nose just right, and many stores have bad return policies for glasses. I have a pair of Gucci’s sitting in their box and I am going to have to find some really special person to gift them to during Christmas.

2) Furniture- If you buy it online, you can’t sit on it, feel the fabric, and you can’t really see the true color. Returning furniture can be an expensive disaster, especially if you have to ship it back. It is best to visit furniture in a store first. I furnished my first condo from various online purchases and ended up with a yellow couch. It looked creme online. Oops. I also ended up with a chair that was hard as a rock. It was like playing musical chairs when I had friends over to watch movies because everyone would grab other seats as quickly as possible to avoid that damn chair.

3) In general- Don’t buy things online that have to be a “perfect fit” in either size or color. These items include suits, bedsheets, area rugs etc.

ONLINE SHOPPING TIPS:

1) coupons- Almost every store has coupons for free shipping online. It is worth taking the 10 seconds to look for them at sites like coupons.com.
2) returns- If I haven’t actually seen an item in person, I try to only buy online from websites that have physical stores, so I can return the item without having to mail it back. Some stores make it free/easy to mail the item back (like piperlime for shoes).

3) fabric- Lots of cheap fabric photographs really well. Make sure to take a look at the fabric listed in the description and avoid bad synthetics. I also like to check the comments that other consumers leave. This saved me from buying various items I may have regretted, since more than one person wrote “material looks cheap” in their review.