There's a lot of stuff I don't buy online.

Clothes -- I like to try them on first.

Tools -- I like to see if they are well made and how they feel in my hand. Photos on a website don't provide this.

Food -- I want to check produce and meat before I buy it. And it's easier to stop at shops I'm passing on my way home anyway.

Household supplies -- I don't want to deal with disposing of shipping boxes, styrofoam peanuts and air pillow packs for stuff I can just grab off the shelf at the local Target.

Big-ticket items (appliances, furniture, etc) -- I want a local business standing behind the product and the warranty.

Stuff I buy online are typically things like books (no local bookstores anymore) and odd items that are hard to find locally (like the mic/audio splitter cable my kid needed for his X-box controller).

Sure, but people can and do buy these things online as well, and some of these are well-suited for a hybrid approach. With clothes, for example, once I find my preferred SKU of trousers or shoes or whatever, I will just buy replacements online rather than return to the store where I bought my first pair, because they're a mass-produced product.

What's more is that more and more people do buy these things online. Clothes and tools especially.

Isn't warranty provided by the manufacturer and not the retailer, and hence better to buy big ticket items online (likely cheaper since there is no local retailers markup).

Even for clothes, yes offline stores do give us the ability to ability to try, but online offers more choices, colours, fabrics, sizes and brands than any one physical clothes store could possibly offer, so I do think online has an edge.

> Isn't warranty provided by the manufacturer and not the retailer

The cost is usually covered by the manufacturer, but the local retailer is usually a point of service.

Pretty much in agreement here, although I do find it more convenient to buy appliances through the big box store's website than to go in person and spend an hour guiding an associate through the options in their arcane inventory system.

Also you get to avoid most of the 99% profit-for-them "warranty" hard sell. I try not to hold it against the salesperson as I've done that kind of job and I know they don't have a choice but it's still incredibly annoying.

For our last 2 appliances (fridge, washing machine) we went to the store and found last year's model on sale at a steep discount to anything online. Also managed to haggle a little.

Clothes are probably one of the bigger things. General grocery items, especially produce. Things that are a pain to return (large appliances). Things you usually need now (hardware/auto store parts).

I will say, I try to never buy monitors online... I've just experienced too many that die prematurely and would rather have someplace I can take back to the same day. My current monitor is actually a 42" UHD TV. I had bought a monitor in that size (40") but it was DOA, and didn't want to wait the round-trip for a replacement. Not the first time I've had monitors die young either. At least they don't weigh over 70 pounds anymore.

>Is there anything people don't buy online these days?

Tons of stuff. [ADDED: e-commerce is 10% of retail in the US.] Ironically, especially in the categories that Sears was best known for selling. Major appliances, lawn equipment, home improvement generally, (to a lesser degree) clothes.

A few years ago, the ancient (circa 1998) microwave in my house failed. I merrily trundled off to the local appliance store and bought a new one, and had them install it. Seemed to work, but eventually I realized it must be drawing too much electricity. Like something out of Green Acres, I had to limit what lights and other appliances were on in the kitchen if I wanted to use the microwave.

I had an electrician come out and look at it. He opined that, due to the way the house was wired, it would be a pretty major undertaking to fix the underlying problem. So I just went along with turning lights off when I cooked.

I finally sold the house, but couldn't pass this problem off to the next owner.

The only place I could find that still sold a microwave so old and feeble that it wouldn't overload my circuit, was Sears.

Thank you Sears! Hopefully I will never need that again, but I am thankful for your help.

> I finally sold the house, but couldn't pass this problem off to the next owner.

As someone who's had his share of problems passed on to him when buying a house, I'd like to know (1) how the next owner found out about the problem and (2) how they managed to strong-arm you into fixing it.

I told my selling realtor about the problem before they house was ever shown to anyone, and agreed to fix it before moving out. It would have been wrong of me to have just left a problem like that.

I'm curious, do you remember what the difference in power draw between the old and new microwaves was?

Standard microwaves are 1100 watt, but there are also 700 watt microwaves. Those extra 3 amps must have set off his circuit breaker.

Sounds about right. Also, this was an above-stove unit, limiting possible choices. Probably could have more easily found a standalone unit that worked.

Especially if it was an odd size. The downside to built-in microwaves is that it took many years for the industry to decide on what sizes they would support, so older installs are always a crapshoot. If you have a weird one it can be hell finding an appropriate microwave. My parents had a very old microwave (1980s era) built into their house that was much bigger than almost everything on the market today, finding a replacement for it was impossible, they ended up having to buy a smaller one and making a custom shim to fit it in the old cavity.

All my major appliances were bought online. Amazon delivers home improvement services now (via partners) in some markets. These may be things that move online slower, but they to move.

I know other comments are pointing out reasons this is not true but honestly it feels that way to me too.

All of my Christmas presents this year were bought on Amazon and delivered direct to my family who live 400 miles away within a day of me ordering them.

Even some of the categories of things other people have listed as things people don't buy online are things I do buy online. Tools for example, if I'm buying something to get a job done I'll pick up something from the catalogue type stores (Screwfix / Toolstation in the UK). On the other hand if I'm buying a decent tool to last I'll pick it out online, usually after reading and watching reviews, and then looking around to find the cheapest price for the exact model.

I was buying a pair of trainers for my partners Christmas. She picked them out on a big department stores website. I went to the store and they didn't keep them in stock. I tried 3 other stores in one of the UKs largest shopping centres and they didn't have them in her size. I tried another shop in a different part of town which didn't have them and finally gave up and ordered them on Amazon. They arrived 2 days later (this only a week before Christmas).