Is purchasing on Amazon instead of a local store destroying a community that goes beyond the transaction – or is it just smart shopping?

Q: I saw something I liked in a store but bought it cheaper online. Is this wrong?

A: I have been on a long journey with this. My first instinct was no; comparison shopping is completely legitimate. Why are you, the individual of limited means, required to compensate for structural inequities that give large retailers an advantage over small ones? Then I thought, hang on. Consumer power is a mighty weapon, and we should all be shopping more wisely, buying less, paying more, and spreading the wealth around more evenly. Then I rang a friend of a friend, who used to run a small shop in London, and heard what it was like from her side. And in the middle of this, I bought two pairs of ballet shoes online.

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I should say from the outset that I shop on Amazon all the time and never feel guilty. Their diapers are even cheaper than Costco’s, and given the crippling cost of baby essentials, cheap in my household wins. But you can’t buy ballet shoes for babies on Amazon because the likelihood is they won’t fit. And so I did what you did, and what a lot of us do.

There is a fancy dance shop a couple streets from my house. 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. 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.

I went in. I asked the sales assistant about their refund policy. 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. 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. In the store, the shoes were $20 apiece. That night I found two pairs, box fresh and unworn, on eBay for a total of $15 including postage.

For a moment, I felt good about this. I had got one over on the man. I had used the power of the internet to connect with individuals who were selling something I wanted to buy. All right, a $31bn company got a piece of the action, but whatever. This wasn’t like taking money from a local bookstore and giving it to Jeff Bezos. It was a victimless crime. In fact – why was I going to these lengths to justify myself? – it wasn’t a crime at all. It was just good sense and smart housekeeping.

The next day, I returned the shoes. There is something heartbreaking about ballet slippers made for a two-year-old. They are tiny, and soft, and vaguely pitiful, and involving them in this dopey con did not give me a sense of wellbeing. 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. A week later, I still feel vaguely shabby about it.

If everything moves online, we push out the kind of shops that create community interactions

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. People would come in, she says, and ask her why it was more expensive than Tesco. “It would drive me nuts. They would say ‘I can’t afford your eco-shop’, when they’d just ridden up on a $2,000 bike. 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.”

Ruth doesn’t shop from Amazon and makes a point about the narrow terms in which most of us define value. This is true. I like having stores in my neighbourhood that aren’t chain pharmacies or Starbucks. 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. For what amounts to a 20 quid difference, I wasted her time and contributed to the demise of something that makes life more livable. “By having shops,” says Ruth, “you fulfill a function in your community that goes beyond the transaction. You’re facilitating community interaction. If everything moves online, we push out the kind of shops that create these interactions. It’s death by 1,000 knives.”

If I were stronger, or richer, or less lazy and cheap, I might apply this principle to more of my shopping habits. As it is, making a distinction between essentials and luxuries, or between small stores and giants, or between a trivial price difference and gouging, seems like a good place to start. In answer to your question, if it feels wrong, it probably is wrong.