![]() I like the idea of a dance shop on the corner, with a lady who remembers me when I go in and who will measure my children’s feet if I drag them in too. I like having stores in my neighbourhood that aren’t chain pharmacies or Starbucks. Ruth doesn’t shop from Amazon and makes a point about the narrow terms in which most of us define value. There’s such a focus on cheapness everything has to be cheaper, and discounted – and I’m not talking about buying a loo roll online, I’m talking about luxuries.” They would say ‘I can’t afford your eco-shop’, when they’d just ridden up on a $2,000 bike. People would come in, she says, and ask her why it was more expensive than Tesco. I’m not entirely sure why and call Ruth, a friend’s friend, who used to run a small eco-friendly store in north London. If everything moves online, we push out the kind of shops that create community interactions A week later, I still feel vaguely shabby about it. The sales assistant remembered me and cheerfully processed the refund, and while I tried to make capital of the fact that the woman behind me in the queue – an elegant, blade-thin ballet teacher, by the looks of things – gave me the once-over, as if scanning me for the detonator under my clothes, I could hardly blame the store for this and felt lousy by the time I walked out. They are tiny, and soft, and vaguely pitiful, and involving them in this dopey con did not give me a sense of wellbeing. There is something heartbreaking about ballet slippers made for a two-year-old. It was just good sense and smart housekeeping. In fact – why was I going to these lengths to justify myself? – it wasn’t a crime at all. This wasn’t like taking money from a local bookstore and giving it to Jeff Bezos. All right, a $31bn company got a piece of the action, but whatever. I had used the power of the internet to connect with individuals who were selling something I wanted to buy. That night I found two pairs, box fresh and unworn, on eBay for a total of $15 including postage.įor a moment, I felt good about this. Then I bought two pairs of ballet shoes, knowing full well I was going to take them home, try them on for size, then take them back and buy them somewhere cheaper online. I marvelled at the dread still brought on by the words “ballet and tap” and wondered why I was sending my children to dance in the first place. ![]() I asked the sales assistant about their refund policy. It is simply a venerable, old brand vested in a brick-and-mortar outlet that makes customers who aren’t prima ballerinas feel uncomfortable while shopping there. It is run by one of the big dancewear companies, so while it is not part of a multinational corporation, neither is it a mom and pop store. There is a fancy dance shop a couple streets from my house. And so I did what you did, and what a lot of us do. But you can’t buy ballet shoes for babies on Amazon because the likelihood is they won’t fit. Their diapers are even cheaper than Costco’s, and given the crippling cost of baby essentials, cheap in my household wins. I should say from the outset that I shop on Amazon all the time and never feel guilty.
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