Online vs. brick-and-mortar

Author Edward McClelland wrote a thoughtful piece for Salon entitled, "How Borders lost its soul" in which he reflected on how much Borders changed from when it was a single store in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The original Borders was charming and well-suited to its community. The chain, on the other hand, had to make itself a lowest-common denominator to be successful as a chain. However, once Borders looked like every other big-box bookstore, it ceased to be all that compelling when lower-priced competition in the form of Amazon came along. As McClellan writes:

Borders ended up caught between the variety of the Internet and the intimacy of the independents. Its outlets could never stock as many books as Amazon. Nor could they duplicate the native flavor of the corner bookstores, with their local author readings and folk music nights.

For some goods -- books, music, and shoes, in my case -- I will always prefer the brick-and-mortar experience. In the case of shoes, it's because I absolutely need to test-walk them before buying. I've had too many bad experiences buying them sight unseen.

For books and music, it's all about the browsing. The Web is a wonderful environment to find things about which you already know, but there's a sublime joy in discovering things you never knew existed, and the handiest way I know to do that is to walk down the street looking in windows.

Too, I prefer the physical act of browsing in a store because I associate searching the Web with an almost unpleasant sense of purposefulness. I don't visit Amazon's Web site to kill an hour or two: I visit it to order something I need, or that I think I need. On the other hand, dropping into Amoeba Records is pure pleasure, whether or not I buy anything (I almost always do). Even visiting an Old Navy store is more pleasurable than checking its online site.

It's far more efficient to shop online, I know. But it isn't as much fun.