Where do you shop? And why?

[greenishfing]

The festive season is galloping towards us again. I do my own shopping but also take a couple of elderly relatives shopping.
As a general rule I don't like buying off the internet unless it's a site I know. Then there is the pain of waiting for a delivery and the item being nothing like the picture and having to go through the hassle of returning it and getting a refund.
I absolutely hate going into the nearest city. It is too spread out with lots of big gaps (empty shops) and insufficient, overpriced parking. I will visit out of town small retail parks but my favourite places are a couple of small towns nearby. Free or very reasonable parking very close to the shops, independent shops rather than the big chains and even a proper market.
Where do you shop? Why?

[nickdub]

Internet:- my main go to is Ebay, got my last car, Volvo 850 estate, for £550 on Gumtree, Amazon for books, other websites for old books, screwfix/rutlands for tools, Parkers for plants, Ryanair for cheap tickets, holiday-bookings via tripadvisor usually, car hire and car insurance via comparison sites - freecycle is good but obviously like local charity shops ... free

Locally:- Morrisons in Ross as they have the best car park, Aldi, Lidl, Baileys up by the new cattle market, B&Q if I'm passing and want to kill half an hour, garden centers occasionally , pound-shop type place they're OK independent store really and have mix up to about £10 for most stuff - I give the local heating oil company a ring every two years or so, for a refill of the tanks here

I really don't enjoy shopping at all, if I have to go anywhere to do it - the internet really is a game changer for me living as I do somewhere near the back end of nowhere.

what puzzles me is that I can order stuff off eBay get it sent from China to my door and pay £2.25 all in for something that looks like it ought to cost £5 to make ???? Funny old, life

[Thelma Sanders]

I do all my heavy shopping on-line from Trashco, tins, cat food & litter, bottles, the usual washing stuff for me and for clothes plus the usual household stuff. It's delivered so no carrying with my bad back
Anything different from my usual or that I need to choose personally, like a joint for a special meal then I go into town to browse. We do now actually have a butchers in Ashford Woohoo! (we didn't for years and some of the rubbish delivered from various supermarkets was truly awful )
I have a small Co op nearby for the usual odds and ends that I pick-up when I buy the paper. The system works well for me.

[Chestnut]

Supermarket click and collect on busy weeks, market and buy-by-weight store for dried stuff if I can get into town on a Saturday.(they let me buy without plastic if I take my own containers)
Out of town retail park near the allotments does for most DIY supplies, if the alotment society shop doesn’t have what I need

[Mark_Riga]

IObviously I grow as much as possible and buy other food as much as I can from local independents: farmers markets, farm shops and the Unicorn vegan shop in Manchester whenever I visit my daughter. Then its the Coop if possible and Sainsbuy as a last resort. Morrisons for yeast.
Avoid online american sites as, in my opinion, they are unfair competition. A good DIY shop in Tarporley for a lot of things and stalls at flower shows, particularly for old tools.

[burnie]

If I can find what I want I buy local, so much tat on the internet, I would sooner pay more and get better, be it food, clothing or a car. I like to try before I buy and support local business if they are good businesses to deal with. I avoid the big "nationals" for clothes, I either buy from a mountaineering shop or a shooting shop for almost all my clothes, also like the "House of Bruar" near Pitlochry(they do nice food too). Food from the producers, so farmers markets in Montrose or Forfar where get rare breed meat and game from the game dealer(Pheasant on order for the end of the month). Apart from my old classic Aston Martin, most of my cars over the past 30 years have been new ones from the dealership. We do go to supermarkets to buy milk and cereals, loo rolls and stuff like that, but our eggs are from a neighbour, same with honey. SWMBO is a whizz at baking with the produce from the garden and sugar free goodies for me. I have bought and sold ebay, but rarely these days, even my model railway stuff comes from Fairs and Exhibitions rather than t'internet. We don't go to Asda any more, don't like the way they are treating the staff.

[nickdub]

If I can find what I want I buy local, so much tat on the internet, I would sooner pay more and get better, be it food, clothing or a car. I like to try before I buy and support local business if they are good businesses to deal with. I avoid the big "nationals" for clothes, I either buy from a mountaineering shop or a shooting shop for almost all my clothes, also like the "House of Bruar" near Pitlochry(they do nice food too). Food from the producers, so farmers markets in Montrose or Forfar where get rare breed meat and game from the game dealer(Pheasant on order for the end of the month). Apart from my old classic Aston Martin, most of my cars over the past 30 years have been new ones from the dealership. We do go to supermarkets to buy milk and cereals, loo rolls and stuff like that, but our eggs are from a neighbour, same with honey. SWMBO is a whizz at baking with the produce from the garden and sugar free goodies for me. I have bought and sold ebay, but rarely these days, even my model railway stuff comes from Fairs and Exhibitions rather than t'internet. We don't go to Asda any more, don't like the way they are treating the staff.

Looks to me Burnie that we are at opposite ends of the spectrum of shoppers - I don't think either approach is right or wrong, it just so happens we've adopted different ones because of the people we are and where we live is all .
I used to buy more local meat and veg 10 years or more ago mostly from a village butchers near here. That was a family business which my Father and his brothers set up before I was born ( in the 1930's ) ? and which 3 of my cousins ran for many years after my father had died - but the last of the family involvement stopped when the youngest cousin was almost 80 - and so the butchers closed, as did the shop/post office next to it which was run by the cousin's wife.

The story around here in the Forest of Dean/Herefordshire border area of the Wye Valley - is that as local people have got richer and have one or more family cars most local shops, pubs and even farms have closed - there used to be 6 milking herds in the village I grew up in for example, now there is one left. There are more garages and petrol stations though. The future will be different again. Its not hard to see a lot of people will be getting most of their weekly shopping delivered from orders. Quite how the driver-less delivery vans of the future will get the bags to peoples' doors is a moot point - heavy lift drones perhaps ?

A brave new world is in sight - none to sure if I like the look of some of it though.

[Small pumpkin]

Mostly internet because even local shops are a long way from here.

[nickdub]

BTW for those who like me are a bit on the tight side - January is a good time to have a trawl on Ebay for electronic gadgets - TV's, mobiles, laptops etc - when the new Xmas presents are in place, the old gadgets often get binned, and a proportion of those end up on auction sites - which is better way to aim for re-use than the recycling center imo.

[ESBkevin]

I work in a small market town, live in another and withing easy reach of the county town. I dislike the town centre experience of the county town these days and an annual visit for shopping is about as much as I can muster.
In my lunch hour I will do selective items in Roys supermarket (some clothing items, hardware and odd food stuffs) or Aldi to puruse thier specials and get olive oil, rapeseed oil, fresh soft fruit and crushed linseed.
Our main weekly shop typically occures Friday early evening, when we take an elderly neighbour to the county towns Morrisons on the outskirts. It's convenient, decent enough produce and until the recent complete refinish it felt homely, familier and easy to find stuff. The facelift has improved the car parking and the garage forecourt, inside the store it's a lot more 'modern/corporate' and could almost be any of the big annonymous supermarkets now.
I do buy things online, our recent battery strimmer, some woodworking tools, printer ink cartridges, and hotwheels track for example.
We visited the local PC/currysworld a while back so that our elderly neighbour could see and touch the new ovans available and also a new wide screen TV on another occasion. But when she needed a new microwave at the same time as us we went online for the deal.
I do support local shops and businesses where I can, butchers for our monthly bulk buy, the local hardware store in our little town etc.
I think habit and familiarity plays a part.

[carolefu]

Bulky items, I order from tinternet, as we haven't got my own transport. Generally, I buy from my local aldi, sainsburys, charity shops for 'once foxed' books & stuff. Anything crafty, I generally use etsy

[bikermike]

We don't use Amazon at all, we buy some stuff off ebay. Most stuff comes from shops (we have three waitroses in striking distance - the joys of North London), clothes come from House of Fraser generally. Toys and stuff generally seem to be second-hand off ebay or occaisional trips to a big shopping centre

[mrmauy]

Really depends on what you count as shopping.

General groceries - Aldi as it's a short walk, or a large Tescos if we need more/are in the car.
Meat - bulk buy from a farm shop butchers, local town butcher thought I'd gone crazy asking for a price of a hind quarter beef
Seeds - Online
Plants/gardening stuff - local nurseries
"stuff" (you know, all those odds things that you didn't think you needed until you find you don't have it - generally ebay or amazon.
Anything else, pretty much always t'internet.

[Kirk]

For food whereever has the sort of item that I feel I most need.
Have a fair selection of supermarkets now, 5 and a couple of the "mixed" stores - B&M + one other.

Tend to cycle round and when backpack full drop it at home and have another trip. Keeps me occupied longer, saves fuel.

Clothing is a newish small retail park, just easy to get there, free parking and a nice size.

The more odd bits is the internet. Easy to sit, listen to TV/Radio/CD and search out whatever it is. Sometimes I need the internet to supply a name for the stuff - as in want a dense foam I can turn on a lathe, found it 3 weeks ago, lost it and have forgot the name/description.

[SarrissUK]

I have access to the Company shop so I tend to go there first for meat (chicken is always very nicely priced there) and anything else that they have available at the time. Then it's Lidl usually for the rest.

Any other kind of shopping is almost exclusively online. My poor next door neighbour gets parcels for me all the time I won't use certain brands such as Amazon, because of their low morals and I find the despicable. I do use fleabay a fair bit, but happy to order online from unknown sites too. Redcandy is my newest favourite for quirky home stuff