Online buying and the loss of human intuition and insight

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge proponent of online buying, and buy a lot of stuff online. We all know the pros and cons of online buying. The lower costs, huge growth of eCommerce companies during the pandemic. The shift in GDP from retail to online, the list and debate is endless and will stay endless.

My point is the gap, the huge gap in buying which perhaps can never be addressed by online. The touch and feel and sensory factors of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell — all fundamentally non-existent online. This results in a complete loss of and lack of human insight and intuition in buying.

Let me quote a specific example first. My wife and I bought jars online. Some big jars, 6 of them, and some small jars, 12 of them. Bad. Mistake. Error. Wrong. Failed. Mis-matched expectations, disappointment. Upset. Had to return it. Why? What went wrong?

In fact even the BEST feedback systems for the top global eCommerce firms do not capture this gap between retail and online.

Let me share the specific factors in my example above. We first go by looks and select what pleases the eye. It still is a picture from a laptop catalogue. All the failings of buying from a photo or picture. What is the size? It turned out to be 700 ml, instead of an expected 1 litre. The specs were there, but the eyes see a photo not read the specs. The hexagonal sides of the jar was hardly visible but become glaring when you hold it in your hand. The lid looks wood-like and nice online in the photo. In your hand it is plasticky and tacky. The silicon rubber sealing is not very apparent online and it’s quality cannot be determined till in your hand. The feel that if I buy this packet of wafers I can fit it into this box does NOT occur to you that if you buy 600 grams of wafer you should be able to fit it into a 700 ml jar.

In retail, on the shop floor the human mind makes all these judgements in micro-seconds. It’s glass or not. Plastic top. Looks nice. What I can put into this or not. Ease of handling. Lid quality. Colour, texture, feel, the smell, yes we do open and sniff it on the shop floor and factory or storage smells tinge the taste on your tongue as well. You can hear the clink of the lid being opened and as you close it. The sound tells you intuitively whether it will be air-tight.

You get the drift with almost any online purchase, which tries to describe all of this in essentially a digital version of a paper catalogue we have always had over the last many decades.

Technology is advancing. Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Simulation, 3D and 3D printing, Artificial intelligence, smell and taste sensors and actuators and mainly fantastic INNOVATION globally is something to watch out for. A fascinating time for technology where end-users will push boundaries to buy a glass jar better online.