In the past month, I made several purchases online and I thought it would be interesting just to go through the kind of items that I am willing to buy off the World Wide Web.
I bought an iPhone headphone adapter from RadTech, Notebook kits from BlueLounge, an iPod Touch pouch from Red Maloo, a Braun Electric Kettle from Amazon and a couple of T-shirts from Insanely Great Tees. Never in my life did I expect to actually purchase a kettle online but I did. It was just too convenient to do it off Amazon and have it delivered right to my doorsteps. No excuses, I was simply too lazy to go around and hunt for the kettle. A couple of clicks made in the comforts of my own room and voila. Hassle-free household shopping at its best moments.
The iPhone adapter I bought was due to a huge design flaw by the peeps at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino.
It was the only solution available to use my Shure earphones with the iPhone.
The recessed female jack for the iPhone is so deep that you cannot just plug any earphones in. It only works with the Apple earphones. The 3.5mm male jack that most earphones and headphones come with is way too short. An additional adaptor is required to use any other earphones or headphones instead of the white ones that came with iPods and iPhones.
Call it a bad design on Apple's part or a deliberate attempt to force customers to only use their symbolic white earphones, either way it is really silly from a consumer's perspective that additional third party product is needed just to use preferred earphones.
I went ahead and bought an adapter off Amazon. A week later, I learned that Shure has a music phone adaptor available for the iPhone that comes with a microphone and buttons to start or end a call. Darn.
The Notebook Kit and t-shirts I bought were triggered from some of the feeds that I subscribe to. They were both featured in the feeds and I simply could not resist the temptations after checking them out. I ended up buying three kits, one for myself and two of it as Christmas presents for my friends. The t-shirts were strictly purchases made by the Apple fan and geek in me. You will seriously have to be a geek to appreciate and understand the 640K t-shirt.
Ever since the Internet has its very own first electronic commerce site, shopping online has come a long way and further popularized by providers like Paypal. What would it be like years from now? Will online be the main channel for consumer purchases and shop fronts ending up as playing second fiddle? Will it come to a stage whereby everything is bought online?