Do you want to save the earth from global warming?
Go green.
Go online shopping.
A recent scientific study has shown that, based on a comparison to getting in the car to the mall, shopping online results in a net decrease in fossil fuel use by the average consumer.
And with the skyrocketing cost of gasoline, it makes even more sense to do your bit for Mother Earth and at the same time save your hard-earned and ever-decreasing money, doesn’t it? Another scientific study shows that the collective will of online shoppers can bring down a killer asteroid on a collision course with our planet.
Okay, I’m just kidding about the asteroid. Well, let NASA take care of that. Or maybe the guy I met one day in my previous incarnation as an affable reporter for a big metropolitan newspaper. (Actually, I worked at the newspaper that was the model for the Daily Planet on the Superman comic strip, no kidding.)
This guy asked to talk to me about a forgotten article that he had written. Looks like he had a discussion about some of the facts. I listened politely and actually made some clever, articulate points. It’s not the standard: “You newspaper folks are only interested in sensationalism.”
So I asked him to write a letter to the editor. The newspaper would surely publish it and provide a forum for your opinions.
“I don’t have NBA Youngboy Hoodie time,” he murmured as he turned to leave. “I have to be in London later to meet Margaret Thatcher. I have invented an invisible shield that shoots down cruise missiles.”
But I digress.
Where were we … oh yeah, shopping online.
It keeps growing more and more. Almost as big as the guy who got so fat, when he sat in the house, he sat in the house. In monetary terms, that’s about $ 200 billion a year in consumer spending in the United States alone.
Something managed to lift Uncle Sam’s sagging pants.
Online shopping has evolved from the early days, when the main demographic was young, well-educated and wealthy men, to consumers of all ages and genders. In fact, it is now dominated by women, young women, middle-aged women, old women, young mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. Clothes, jewelry, shoes, cosmetics, perfumes, books, baby clothes, and children’s things, you name it, women buy it online, where they can compare prices and save money and hassle. It makes perfect sense for young moms who can’t go to the mall, grandmothers who want to find all kinds of cool things to spoil grandchildren because they’re worth pampering, and professional women who don’t have the time.
The old phrase “buy until you drop” is being replaced by “buy until you have carpal tunnel syndrome.”
As for us men, we don’t just ask for fishing lures. We love our toys, especially gadgets. The Internet is ideal for buying devices and finding devices that we did not know existed. Online shopping has never been safer or more secure with all that fancy encryption stuff they put on websites today. Just look for an online store that treats you, the consumer, like a person and not just like a credit card.
Fascinating fact: Did you know that Americans are not buying the most, per capita, online? You will never guess who. British? Japanese? Canadians? No. His South Koreans.
There is even a rumor that inmates and totalitarians Dear Leader from North Korea shop online. But you have to send it to a postal address in Shanghai.