According to reports, 25-year-old Erin Wagner sat at her computer last night, ready to spend $650 shopping at an online retailer, but upon checkout, was stopped cold by a $3.99 shipping fee.
“I really needed new clothing–so I put a pantsuit, an $89 t-shirt that says ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien,’ and three pairs of ankle boots in my cart,” says Wagner. “I had my hand on the checkout button until I saw that stupid $3.99 shipping fee. Why does it cost so much to send stuff in the mail?”
Wagner insists that while she’d happily spend $650 on the clothes in her shopping cart, paying shipping and handling is just too much.
“Even if I blow my entire paycheck on clothes, I still know I’m getting at least two whole pieces of clothing in the mail soon,” she explains. “But I get nothing from paying shipping fees, except a reminder that I’m wasting money on absolutely nothing.”
“She pays $3.99 for coffee every morning,” says Kelsey Burke, a close friend of Wagner’s. “But refuses to pay more than a dollar for a donation-based yoga class. If she’s so worried about money, she shouldn’t be ordering $56 paisley culottes.”
Wagner sees no problem with splurging on the the 50% markup for retail clothing, though she can’t seem to find the value in paying the subsidized cost for receiving the clothing from across the country in two days or less.
“If I had to spend $100 more to get free shipping, I would,” says Wagner. “I’d add another pair of ankle boots, or 60 pairs of those ear cuff things I’d never wear. Hell, I’d even rent a truck, drive to the warehouse and pick up everything myself before I spent a dime on the total waste of so-called ‘shipping.’”
“Honestly, I’d pony up the $3.99 if I had that much to spend on clothes in the first place,” says Burke, sighing.
Wagner, however, seems no closer to changing her decision.
“It’s too late,” she says, closing all her open tabs on Madewell’s website. “I just don’t like wasting money on frivolous things.”
Temporarily deterred from buying clothes, Wagner sought to treat herself with $55 worth of Chinese food delivery, but after noticing a $2 delivery fee she decided to walk to the deli and buy six Snapples and a bag of chips instead.
