This week was my grandsons birthday and it turned out into a massive run around buying his gift. I do shop online but when it comes to gifts for him I find it easier to shop with my eyes putting myself in his position what he would want. I settled on a Scalextric which was the start of all the troubles.
On His birthday I spent over 3 hours building it for him and the blasted thing wouldn't work. Eventually I had to pack it up and return it to Toys 'R' Us for a refund as they had no other options available. It wasn't that expensive being around $100.
The cashier doing the refunds explained credit cards are easier as it is an instant return to your card however a debit card they pay you in cash. The tills had very little cash available and I had to then wait over 3 hours in order to be paid out. Scary to think how quite businesses are in general as over that time waiting they only had 7 customers with 2 others asking for a refund.
Eventually I was paid the $80 and another $20 from their change float leaving the other two customers waiting for their refund (good luck). I eventually found another store with what I required and the end result my grandson is happy with his gift.
It felt kind of odd returning to the shops as I haven't stepped foot inside this shopping center pre covid and so much has changed. Shops have shut down and been replaced by another sucker as there were empty shops dotted around the center. One of the shops on the outside is now a workshop for servicing cars which you would never have seen before. Shopping centers are on their way out big time and this is all down to online.
Covid along with lockdowns has escalated online shopping an came across a key stat today whilst researching this post that 63% of all shopping starts online before they look elsewhere. This is how quickly mass adoption has embraced internet shopping. 5 years ago this would have not been the case and bricks and mortar type shops are going to slowly disappear within the next 5 years.
They say adoption happens slowly slowly and then suddenly and can see this happening with other examples like crypto. Being involved in the industry we think that this has taken forever, but it hasn't really. Bitcoin has only been around for 13 years but a majority of the Alts far less and this is where the use cases come from. Businesses take time to become established and the same applies to a genuine use case crypto as it needs to develop to show it's true value.
The next 2-3 years will be super interesting as the world has changed and moved on so much just in he last 3 years. All that is required now is a little patience as crypto is the next big thing to take off.