UNITED STATES—I see this often and wondered if this was just me or a trend that is happening more in America now than ever before. You buy something, and you immediately return it. I do tend to see this transpire a lot more with women than men, but that doesn’t mean guys don’t do it well. We are NOT about to go on a massive tangent about the differences between men and women when it comes to shopping. The one thing that I have noticed is that most men know what they want, go get it and the situation is done and over.

I’ve seen my sister spend hours looking online for big deals and purchasing a ton of things, and ends up returning 75 percent of those items back to the store where she purchased them. Why? She turns around and finds a better deal elsewhere or the item itself is not what she thought it would be.

Women tend to debate, they evaluate, they want to see how something looks on them; I’m mainly in reference to clothing people. I was at a retailer recently as a result of me needing to pay a bill and I was so surprised to see so many people returning items. A lot of those items were purchased online, and in boxes. I’ve made this argument time and time again: buying online is dangerous.

You cannot see the product that you’re purchasing. You see a picture, but a picture is NOT the same as seeing something in person. You don’t get to touch it; you don’t get to evaluate the actual item itself. The texture, the fit, the feel and the overall aesthetic, all these things should be taken into account people. As a result, all this money is charged on your credit card, debit card or store credit card.

So now you have to wait for the item to arrive, get in the car, wait in line, return the item and then on the flipside, you tend to spend that money back again on an item that you still don’t like. As a result you start to spend a bit more money than what you should be spending people. The one great thing I love about online retailers is that you sometimes find wicked deals online that you will NEVER and I mean NEVER find in person or at the actual store. I don’t know what the deal is on the case. Perhaps it is the retailer’s way of drawing traffic to the website.

It works, but at the same time it does not always work people. You run into the trouble of having your items that are to be shipped being delayed, you receiving the wrong items, you receiving the wrong size, the list goes on and on. Just because something is convenient does not mean it’s always the best method to use. Online shopping can actually cause more headaches than just going to the store in the first place.

Written By Zoe Mitchell