{"id":7040975,"date":"2026-08-17T17:21:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T17:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/angel-investor\/when-did-shopping-stop-being-fun\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T17:21:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T17:21:34","slug":"when-did-shopping-stop-being-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7040975","title":{"rendered":"When Did Shopping Stop Being Fun?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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US consumer spending is down, and the easy explanation is obvious: people are anxious. The economy feels uncertain, the news cycle is exhausting, and when customers are worried about the world, they hold onto their wallets. Also, the cost of food, gas, and housing has accelerated. That\u2019s real, and it\u2019s part of the story.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the whole story. I think something else is going on, and it\u2019s less about fear and more about boredom.<\/p>\n

There was a time when shopping online felt like discovery. You\u2019d land on a site and stumble onto something you didn\u2019t know you wanted. Net-a-Porter, Farfetch \u2014 in their early days, these places had a point of view. Now? I couldn\u2019t tell you what separates one from the other. The curation has flattened into sameness. Everything looks the same, feels the same, sells the same handful of luxury labels on repeat.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Amazon. I\u2019ll be honest: I have a hard time even clicking \u201cbuy\u201d these days, and it\u2019s not about price or convenience \u2014 it\u2019s about how the company treats its people. The only reason I\u2019m still tethered to Amazon at all is my Kindle. I\u2019ve quietly stopped buying almost everything else there. My Amazon purchases have plummeted, and so has my online shopping in general. When a purchase makes you feel a little bit lousy, and the product itself isn\u2019t even exciting, there\u2019s no reason to keep clicking.<\/p>\n

If big platforms have lost their spark, where is individuality actually happening? Right now, a lot of it is happening through vintage clothing \u2014 people building their own look out of pieces nobody else has, instead of buying the same drop everyone else bought. That\u2019s not a coincidence. When the mainstream options all start to look identical, people go looking for something that doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I hope the next generation of retailers figures this out. I want stores that feel unique, not replicated. Not another version of the same luxury mall experience stamped out in city after city, country after country. Places where young, independent brands can actually rise up instead of getting crowded out by the same luxury names everyone already carries. <\/p>\n

Because here\u2019s what a great store can do that a website never will: give people a reason to linger. To hang out. To talk to each other. That\u2019s the thing algorithms can\u2019t replicate \u2014 a place, not just a transaction.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s what we\u2019ve tried to build at Gotham<\/a>. We wanted to separate ourselves from the crowd. What\u2019s interesting is watching the effect play out with our own customers \u2014 yes, people come in for cannabis, but increasingly they\u2019re coming in for *Gotham*, for the space and the experience we\u2019ve built around it. That relationship is strong enough that we\u2019re leaning further into it: expect to see more Gotham-branded products showing up in our stores starting this autumn.<\/p>\n

Retail didn\u2019t die. It just got boring for a while. The fix isn\u2019t a better algorithm \u2014 it\u2019s better rooms, run by people with a point of view who take care of you and know your style. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US consumer spending is down, and the easy explanation is obvious: people are anxious. The economy feels uncertain, the news cycle is exhausting, and when customers are worried about the world, they hold onto their wallets. Also, the cost of food, gas, and housing has accelerated. That\u2019s real, and it\u2019s part of the story. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7040976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12034],"tags":[1304,11132,1403],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7040975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-angel-investor","tag-fun","tag-shopping","tag-stop"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Did Shopping Stop Being Fun? - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7040975\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Did Shopping Stop Being Fun? - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"US consumer spending is down, and the easy explanation is obvious: people are anxious. 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