- Hello, this is Jack from
tofluency.com along with Kate. And today we're going to talk about, well, you introduced the topic today. - Yes, so today's topic is going to be. one that I came up with. It's Online Shopping. - Online shopping.
- Mm-hmm. - Yeah, and we've made a list of a few different topics around this where I'm going to talk about
a couple of my recent orders. - Mm-hmm - The a trending online shopping. And also things like meal
delivery services, too. - Mm-hmm.
- Okay. - Before we get started too much, I had these on but there is
a little bit too much glare. This is where the conversation came from. These are my new glasses. - Mm-hmm - I ordered them online. I just picked out the style,
uploaded my subscription. And a week later I had some glasses. - Oh your prescription.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah, not subscription.
- Yeah, yeah. - Prescription - So, yeah, glasses prescription
is basically telling how strong you need them. What kind of lenses to make. - Mm-hmm.
- Yeah. And I think that's an
interesting place to start because if you think back 10 years the thought of getting glasses online. - Yeah - Because when online shopping started people thought, okay, it's gonna be for items that you don't need to try on. - Mm-hmm. - But companies that got around this by allowing you to try things on for free as long as you give them
your credit card details. So, just today, I'm going
to get some new glasses. So I've ordered five pairs and they're going to
deliver these to our house. I'm gonna try them on,
choose my favorite one, send them all back, and then they'll put the right lenses in. - Mm-hmm. - But I think that's a good example of something that you just
never thought was gonna happen. - Yeah, no way.
- Yeah. - Yeah, all sorts of things. Like we bought a mattress
online a few years ago. - Mm-hmm They had an amazing refund policy. - Uh-huh.
- Do you remember? - Yeah, so they took all the risk out, so you could get the mattress and then if you didn't like
it, you could return it. - Mm-hmm. - No questions asked. - Yeah.
- Or donate it. - No, you could donate it to charity. - Uh-huh.
- And you get your money back. - Yep. - I wonder if they still do that? - I think so. I think that's a pretty
key part of their model because you don't want to
spend hundreds of dollars, or even now a larger
mattresses, a thousand. Give or take-
- Yeah. - And not know if you'll like it. - Yeah, so do you do a
lot of online shopping? - Do you?
(chuckles) - We both do, don't we?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- We do. - And it's just become
such a convenience now. - Mm-hmm. - With fast shipping
times, refund policies. I think I might've this before, but what if my new year's resolution for 2020 was not to go
to the grocery store more than five times a year. - Mm-hmm. - Because I got used to
grocery shopping online and getting it delivered. And then the Corona virus hit. And everyone was online shopping anyway. And you couldn't get any times available. - Yeah, so you were ahead of
the curve, but then the curve- - The curve did something incredible. Yeah, so there's so many
things you can get online now, but I think we need to
talk about the one website that's really taken over here in the US. - Mm-hmm. - Probably I think in the UK
and other parts of Europe. - I think in the world-
- In the world. - Really. Yeah, actually that's a
great question for today. Is amazon.com popular where you live? And do you use this website
to buy things online? I remember they started out
by just having books, right? - Mm-hmm. - So it was an online bookstore. - It was. - And do you remember one of their tactics to increase their customer base? - I don't. - So, I think it was
the bookstore Borders. - Uh-huh. - Which used to be very popular. - Yes. - And they said to Borders, "okay we can ship your books around the US for a very low price if
we get the customer data". And Borders said, "yes,
that sounds amazing". And they thought, "I think this is right". I'll leave a link to
an article about this. So you can read about it. And Borders thought, "yeah, this is great.
We're getting a great deal" because Amazon's taking
care of all of this for us. But little by little that
customer list went to Amazon. Amazon sent them emails, follow-ups, then people were buying
from the Amazon store. - That makes sense, yeah. - I'm sort of done stuff
like that all the time. But I was thinking about Amazon as well because there's a push back against it because it's a big store. - Mm-hmm. - It takes over, and it's
killing independent stores, independent bookstores. But I was thinking about
this because we also know people who create
stuff and they use Amazon and they love Amazon. - Mm-hmm.
- To sell that items around the country. - Yeah. - So it also supports people who want to use a fully integrated
logistical system. - Mm-hmm. - To sell stuff and deliver stuff online. - Yeah, we have a few friends
who have opened Amazon stores, selling various things. Some of them have broken even, some of them have been
really successful with it. - Mm-hmm.
- A few people have not, but it is definitely a
force to be reckoned with, especially after last year. - Yeah, oh yeah. Last year, well, I mean, we know people in our
neighborhood and ourselves- - Mm-hmm. - When everyone was stuck at home, people ordered things that
maybe they didn't need, we didn't need, but
thinking if we were gonna be at home all this time,
then let's make it fun. Let's make it exciting
and have good stuff to do. - Yeah, what was one example of that? - Like, well, we know
people who got hot tubs? - Mm-hmm. - Swimming pools.
- Mm-hmm. - Or, you know, we got
a little paddling pool. - I think that actually
was from beforehand. - A paddle pool.
- But we did... I did get a lot of books. - Yeah.
(chuckles) - You got chickens in a chicken coop. - I did, but I did not
get those from Amazon. - No, but you got it online, right? - I did.
- Yeah. So everyone was buying things online- - Mm-hmm. - And then there was a
shortage of certain items, too. - Yeah. - But yeah, Amazon is
definitely taken over here, and people have that, "ugh,
I don't want to use it because such a big company is taken over". But the convenience seems to win out. - Mm-hmm.
- Yeah. - It does. - Yeah, online shopping. So, in the past it used to be books. We used to buy books online. Also, Netflix just used to
be DVDs delivery, right? - Yes, I remember you got
to order, was it five? - Yeah. - I think five sticks
in my head as a number, and they would come, and
you could watch the DVDs, and then return them. - Mm-hmm, instead of
going to your local store- - Yes - And getting the DVDs from there. - Uh-huh. - So, there is this move
towards people buying things at home online and they
can get it delivered. So Amazon has taken over. I've just bought a new cap,
which I'm very excited about. (both chuckles) - You're probably gonna
get to see this cap. Because I think once it arrives, well, either you're gonna love it, or you're gonna hate it. - Yeah
- But if you love it, I don't think you're gonna take it off. - I'm doing Instagram, or
go to Fluency on Instagram. - Uh-huh. - And then you can see the
new cap once it arrives. - It's something else. - It's a little bit different. - Yeah, it's very, very style... Bold stylishly. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - But it was something that
I wanted to treat myself, and that's the one thing... But it was more expensive
than I'm willing to spend. But you were laughing a little bit because in terms of, you
know, the overall prices. - Well, for how much you
wanted this hat and, how... So, can I say the price of it or- - No.
- No, okay. - No, they'll have to go
on Instagram to find out. - To find out. For the price of the hat, you have been agonizing
about this for weeks. - I would say agonizing. - I would say agonizing. (both chuckles) - I just won today.
- I was just... Sometimes I see you looking at your phone- - They keep targeting me on Instagram. - Oh, that's the other thing. - Yes.
- Instagram shopping. - Yep, Instagram shopping
has become very popular now. - Uh-huh. - Yeah, so this is where you get targeted with ads for certain things. And for example, I'll
buy a shirt like this, or look up a shirt like this, and then suddenly every other ad is, "hey, what about this shirt?",
"what about this shirt?", from all different companies. Not just the company I was looking at. - Mm-hmm, you know what
I find really annoying? - Go on. - Have you ever been looking for something for a really long time? - Mm-hmm.
- You finally decided to buy it. You pull the trigger.
- Mm-hmm. - So you actually buy it online. - And yeah, pull the
trigger, that's a good one. - And then you keep on
seeing ad, after ad, after ad for that same thing, only better, and less expensive
- Mm-hmm. - And better reviewed and it'll
come faster and you just... - Yeah.
= It's really frustrating. - Well, you can't win it all- - No
- Win them all. But, yeah, I mean, it's not
like we buy too much on them. We go through phases, don't we, really? - Yeah. - Like how we go through a phase in spring when I get my summer clubs out and think, "I didn't
really wear that last year, I didn't wear this, I didn't wear that". And I'll donate those clothes, and maybe buy three or four
new T-shirts for the year. But I do have a little bit of a problem at the moment with something. - What?
- Books? - Oh yeah, mm-hmm? - And there's a meme isn't
there that I showed you? - Yeah. - What a person's looking at, or the the woman is looking
at the guy to say like, "all the books that I've bought recently", and then a guy...
"and not read". And then the guy's
looking at "oh, new book". - Yep.
- Yeah. - I think it's called like
your, "to be read pile"? - Yeah, I've got a big pile,
and the big thick books. - I know. - And the hard books to read. (both chuckles) - They're like college books are classics. So, yeah. - But I'm using thrift books for that. - Well, you... I've always had a book. - Just leave it down. - I've always had a lot of books, and had a really hard
time getting rid of books. - Yes, and I go through
phases as well thinking, "I should get digital books because they don't take up
space and it's more minimalist", but trying to reduce
screen time, therefore... And I don't like... I prefer a proper book to read rather than a digital one. - Mm-hmm.
- Yeah. - I got really hooked
on digital books though. Especially when the kids were little. - Mmmm. - And they would fall asleep in my lap, and I couldn't really move, or I was taking care of them. And so it was so easy to pull out my phone and pull up a book-
- It wasn't easy. - And just scroll like this - Because with our first child, - Mm-hmm.
- You only had a laptop. - That's true. - We didn't have phones. - Oh my gosh, did I read on my laptop? - Yes. - I've read them on my laptop. - Do you remember that? - So it must've been
like balancing my laptop, and Thomas and... - Because we got a phone when
I think Thomas was about one. - Yeah. - Because it would just
put it off, and put it off. - Yeah, we didn't bother.
- Because we knew this world. - We knew it was gonna
take over, and it has. - Yeah. - And that's the podcast
episode you can listen to. I'll leave a link in the description. Where I talk about
social media, and phones, and how they've taken over. And there's no going back. There's no going button now. - I don't know, that's a little bit... I mean, there's no completely going back, but I think that there's a way to get some more healthy boundaries- - Yes,
- Around using a phone. - But the trend is gonna be more and more. Like phones, wearables, voice,
you know, everything else. - Mm-hmm. - Face recognition. - I talked to someone today
who gave me a phone number, and she wrote it down on a scrap of paper because she didn't have a smartphone. - Oh, really? - Uh-huh, and that is so
uncommon where we are. - Well, it was uncommon
when we didn't have them. - Yeah, like-
- Everyone couldn't believe... No one can... - Everyone had a smartphone
- Six years ago. - Uh-huh.
- And we didn't, did we?. - Yeah, and then we were so busy. I didn't know how to use mine. (chuckles) I was teaching 13 year
olds and 14 year olds. And I would make videos of their class presentations,
or assignments. And they would have to show
me how to use my phone. They told me like, "you
can rotate your phone". And I had no idea.
I had no idea. - Yeah.
- Mm-hmm. - So, anyway, so yeah, the
books I got at the moment are from thrift books, which are secondhand, which I feel better about.
(chuckles) And I'm trying also clothes. I tried to get them from eBay second hand too.
- Oh yeah? - I try to buy second hand clothes. - Yeah, especially because... That's the thing, isn't it? Because with clothes
shopping, bored on online you don't know if it's gonna fit you. - Mm-hmm. - And I think they'd know
that a certain percentage of people, or a certain
percentage of orders, won't come back because
people miss the date, mainly us, too
- Yep. - We're not good at sending things back- - No.
- Are we? - Not at all. - But with eBay, if you know
your size, you know the item, then you can go on eBay and save 50%. - Yeah.
- True. - And then I want to talk
about meal delivery services. - Mm-hmm. - Because I never thought,
I would never ever thought that this would have happened. (chuckles) Where you just get food
delivered to your door. - Yeah.
- We use a local company now. - Uh-huh.
- And- - Called Mother Earth Produce. - Yeah. - Cure in the Asheville area.
- Mm-hmm. - And they deliver from
local produce companies, and different... Like, you can get milk,
you can get other things, but mainly vegetables at the moment. - Mm-hmm. - But there's also nationwide ones that are now doing very, very well. Meal delivery is huge. And also just ordering from a restaurant on an app is so popular now. - Oh yeah. And people have kind of like, there's a personal shopper. Do you know what I'm talking about? - So people-
- For clothes? - Or for groceries. - For groceries? - As well.
- Oh yeah, yeah. That's massive. It's unbelievable. - That was very rare, but for last year.
- But that's what I was using. - Uh-huh. And it used to be my little secret. (chuckles) - I personally liked the experience of going grocery shopping. I like to look at the tomatoes. I like to smell them.
- Mm-hmm. - I like to...
(chuckles) - I mean, not too much,
but you know, enough, waft, waft them, you know,
pick them up and look at them. Find the best ones. - No wonder you take so long.
- I can have, like... I know, I go into the
grocery store and it's like, I'm going into like
hunting, and gathering mode. - Mm-hmm. - Like I'm completely in the zone. - Yeah, I think we're different now because I just like to know what I want. Have the list already done.
- Mm-hmm. - And just go da, da, da, da, da, da. It takes like three minutes. - That's nice.
- Yeah, it is nice. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - I don't know, I have like
a map of the grocery store in my head though.
- Mm-hmm. And so, you know, I could
probably go grocery shopping in my sleep.
- Mm-hmm. - Except Trader Joe's,
changes it up a lot. - Do they?
- Mm-hmm. - Oh, they do quite often, don't they? - Mm-hmm. - I don't like it when they change it up. - I've started to crave that excitement. I used to highly dislike
it, and they haven't- (chuckles)
- Crave that excitement. - I know, I'm also a little
bit addicted to Trader Joe's. The grocery store.
- Yeah. - I used to resist it. They would come out with like, they would take away my favorite
pasta, for example, and put out a new one, and I would
be so disappointed and upset. But now I'm like, "oh, what
kind of pasta do we have now?" - Mm-hmm.
- Like... I get really excited about that. - Yeah, good. Well, yeah, I prefer just to do it online and then also get the meat
from the local farm here. - Mm-hmm.
- And they... I used to like go into the store but now they're doing the whole, wait in your car, do the order the day before, and they'll just put it in your trunk, but you have to go to the... And they do delivery too, yeah. - Now-
- Go on, you've got something, - Yeah.
- you got... - Well, I have a question.
- Uh-huh. - Because one thing about online shopping, are subscriptions.
- Mm-hmm. - So a lot of times when
you are buying something you're not just buying one item. A very common business
model for online shopping, is that the stores have
you get a subscription where every single month, or week, or after a period of time, maybe a season. - Yep. - You get a new item delivered. - Yeah, they're doing this for... I mean Wine clubs are really popular now. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, our friend just started one. So, check it out in the description. We'll leave a link to it. And they do other things too. - What?
(chuckles) - I just... - Oh, he's fine, he's just fine. - So, the Wine clubs, yet subscription is for
everything, like meat. There's a big one for me as well. I think it's called Butcher Box. There is, oh you go on, couldn't you? I'm struggling for examples. - Okay, so there's anything that you want. There's book of the month club.
- Tea - There's tea. - There's chocolate.
- Coffee. - Coffee. Yeah, and just buying a product, like if you buy it through a store, a lot of times they'll have it in as an automatic recurring payment. - Yeah.
- For awhile I was trying, like a...
Not a sleeping pill, but like a vitamin for sleeping. - Mm-hmm. - And so they put me on
a monthly subscription. - Oh yeah.
They're expensive too, aren't they? - Oh yeah, most of the things
like they really sell you on the product, you really
believe in the product. They do have really good marketing. You see somebody on Instagram
and they were so happy. - Yeah.
- They're endorsing it. And you click subscribe
- Yeah. - And then six months later, (chuckles) - Yeah, it happens.
- You have to try to figure out how to unsubscribe. - Yeah, I got rid of a lot
of subscriptions recently. And it's also happening with apps as well. So, entertainment, upstream and services. It used to be just either you watch cable, or satellite. What'd you call it here, satellite too? - I guess so. - Yeah, and then Netflix
was your stream in one. That was the only one. And then Amazon Prime, now Disney Plus, and everyone's doing it. HBO.
- Yeah. So many of them are just coming in now. And then the issue... And again, YouTube TV and
different ones came in where you didn't have to have cable. And cable used to be, or it still is around
like between 80 and $120. And then you had these ones coming like, with it, to choose which ones you want. Like quite about all right,
price is up next month to 40. You know, it's still cheaper. And then YouTube TV is like 65, 70 now. - A month?
- Yeah. - Holy moly.
- That's why I canceled it. - How much are Netflix,
or Amazon right now? - Well Netflix is the same as well. So Netflix went from, I
think it was 10 to 15, 10 to 20 for the one we were using. But then I got on the lower service. Yeah, I feel like we're
doing our admin here. - I know, we're like,
we're having a conversation about all this subscriptions
that we need to cancel. - But yeah, you talk to the families too. And they're saying, "yeah, we're on all these subscriptions". And this is the thing, it's just, everything is subscription-based. And they'll try and get you in, and people think I've got to do it, and it just becomes expensive. And you can probably get rid of it all. - I think we're always
looking for shortcuts as people looking for things to be easier. And you know, and I
think that's the appeal of getting subscriptions,
or these services but it kind of takes away from the spontaneous feel of things, you know?
- Yeah, oh it does. - And you don't think
about every purchase. You don't really like, you know,
choose what movie to watch. For example, you're just
like, "ah something" - Yeah.
- You know. - That's the other thing. If I'm online food shopping
and something's on offer I will get 10 of it, whatever it is, for example.
- That's probably smart. - But then I go to the shop and there putting 10 in your cart feels a little bit too much.
- Yeah, - Do you know what I mean?
- Oh, I know what you mean. - Yeah.
- Uh-huh. - You know what I mean? - I know, I always like, so
probably my biggest advice- - Sorry, I'll just say I would never go to a store and spend
that much money on a cap. (chuckles)
Seriously though. I would never go to a store,
- The hat. - See a cap, and think,
- Uh-huh. - I'm gonna buy that for that price. - Oh man, when you see it, it'll be like, "ooooh".
- Yeah? I better change my life. - I mean, I think it's definitely gonna change your life
hopefully in a positive way. - Yeah, maybe you'll just send me into a different personality, and... - There you go.
- Yeah, negatively. (both chuckles) - The cap that turns Jack evil. - I'm gonna annoy everybody. - Be like, flushing these
out, you know, wassup bro. Wassup bro.
- Not much bro, nice hat. - Yeah, just to go back to meal delivery, we enjoyed that this time
last year, didn't we? - Mm-hmm, well, I did.
- That was pretty good. - I think I might've mentioned
- I enjoyed it, too. - That in the last... - Yeah.
- Did you? - No, you were getting the meal delivery and I didn't want it,
- Mm-hmm. - But then you ended up
cooking most evenings. So I was happy about that
and it turned out fine - But the problem was that
I was a little stressed out last year,
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. - Everything was shutting down. I didn't know what was gonna happen. I mean, nobody did, right?
- Yeah. And so when I got the
meal delivery service, I didn't get just one. I got like several and... - Yeah, oh you got all those veggies, too. Yeah, and I, and I also had
subscribed to Mother Earth, which we still love and use, but also like a different
vegetable subscription. - Mm-hmm.
- Yeah, it was bad. - I also got like, 350 pounds of meat. - Yep.
- Which was amazing. It was on super sale. Because what happened was... Because all the restaurants closed down, the local farms lost all there orders. So they said, "look we've got all this meat
that we have to get rid of". It's 60, 70% off.
- Yeah. - And I was like, pop, pop, pop, pop. And it was the same with beer, - Oh yeah.
- All delivered, right? It was 25 cents a can. - Yeah, and for like really- - Free delivery. - Really, you know, good craft beer. - Oh yeah, local craft beer. - And you know, they'd
just been in production, and had all of these cases and cases, and cases of beer. - Again, because restaurants closed down. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - I think we did quite well
at that time, actually. - I mean, it was a strange time, but there were some silver linings to it. - Yeah, but I think a
good summary here is that, subscriptions and online
shopping, you know, and it's obviously, like we
can, if we have some type of disposable income to
afford that kind of thing. But at the same time, it can take over and before you know, it's like a creep. And it's not just us. I know of the people talk
about this all the time, but it seems like there is
this trend now toward... Just as a little bit of a tangent, but I remember reading
that a lot of millennials weren't getting cars
because their expenses now, are of the things. The mobile phone, it's like
a hundred dollars a month. Then internet service. - So they can't afford cars, or it's not part of the lifestyle? - In terms of, if they can afford or not, it's not a priority over the other stuff that they would have to budget for. - Oh yeah.
- Does that make sense? - It does. - And obviously people are living in cities where they can get around which is my latest podcast episode. - Oh yeah. - Talks about sidewalks,
lack of sidewalks in the US. - We used to not have a car. - No, I love to walk in every... This is what I was
saying, it's what I miss. You walk everywhere. In Spain when we were taking groceries up seven flights of stairs. And water, because you
couldn't drink the tap water. - Oh yeah. - Or at least people said we couldn't. - I mean, I trust them. (chuckles)
- Yeah. - Whenever somebody says
don't drink the water. I think it's usually a good policy. - Remember what I told you
that when we came on holiday to the US?
- Mm-hmm. - Everyone in the UK don't drink no water. - They did.
- Yeah. - Why? - Well, they said that it's
just not good for you, it's bad. I think every country
I've been to on a holiday, it's like, "Oh, don't drink
no water, it's bad water". Spain was one- - I mean that was Spanish
people were talking like that. - Do you ask?
- Uh-huh. - Yeah. - But I wouldn't say
don't drink the water. - The tap water. - Uh-huh.
- Yeah. - Is that because of the flood? - Well back in the day, probably not. But now it's probably
a good reason not to. - I think Florida has
been a part of city water for that long. - Maybe that's why then. Because I don't think they
put that in the tap water. - They put fluoride, which is a mineral? - A mineral. - Mineral that, like
strengthens your teeth, but in excess can have negative. - One also did, well, we're
not gonna talk about it here, but I prefer if they didn't
put fluoride in the water. - Mm-hmm.
- Yeah. - But, online shopping. Yeah, I'll get my new cap, my new glasses. And I'll do a nice little
Instagram post for your all. - Your accent sounds
particularly strong today. - Is it?
- Mm-hmm. - Because I just had a coffee. - Mm-hmm, it might be your cap. - Oh yeah, if people... I gave up coffee this time last year. - Mm-hmm. - And I have succumbed
to the caffeine again, and I feel so much better. (chuckles) - No, don't go back. - Two cups a day, maximum,
won't have any more. - Oh no, it was a half a cup. - Yeah, but when you make
coffee in the morning you refuse to make me like
a decaf or a half caff. So, it depends... (both chuckles) Because when I wake up
but I'm like the half caff then you always say like at work, "wait a minute, why am I still tired?" - "Why am I still asleep?" - Cool, well, we'll end it there. - Okay. - Yeah, oh, yes. If you're here on YouTube... This is both on YouTube
and the podcast on Apple... I know.
- What? So like talking to
people at the same time. - Oh yeah. - So if you're on
YouTube, then check out... Well, if you're anywhere,
check out the description cause I'll have links for you. And we'll see if we can
leave some key phrases for you there as well,
but we'll have links to the story about Amazon and that whole, how they took over. Links to our friend's
subscription, you know, and some other things in
Asheville, Asheville Tea company. - Yeah, well, I am also, you know, I hope that we weren't
speaking too quickly. This time we've clearly had a
lot of coffee and done a lot of online shopping, so
we're really energized. - Yeah, well, and we don't
spend that much time together. (both chuckles) We're kind of excited about it. - Did you buy the cap? - Yeah.
- When's it coming? - I don't know, I don't know. - Can I do a Kate's question? - Yeah, do a Kate's question. - So my question is, if you shop online, what makes you want to buy something? - Yeah, I think also, I've
think about if advertising works on you. - Well, that's kind of my question. Like, what makes you buy online? What do you buy online? If anything. - And yeah, we asked the question before about Amazon as well. - Oh yeah. - But you can link it together. Yeah, if you're on YouTube, subscribe. If you're on Apple Podcasts, or other podcast ones,
then subscribe as well. You can subscribe. - Subscribe. - Leave a positive review as well if you have the time to do so. Kate, have you done that
yet on your Podcast app? - Not yet.
- Not yet? - No.
- Okay. Well Kate needs to go
on it as well, but yeah, and share it with a friend. Just share this episode with a friend and we look forward to
reading your comments. All right. Thank you for being here. I'll speak to you soon. Ba-bye.
