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Do you have a favorite way to buy clothes? Do you prefer to do your shopping online at home with a glass of wine and no bra? Or do you prefer to actually put on pants and go to the store? When it comes to style, is there a best way to shop? That's what we're talking about today. So let's get started. Hello gorgeous. Welcome back to the Everyday Style School, the podcast that gives real life style advice to real life women. I'm your host, Jennifer Macky. Mary I'm a wardrobe stylist who's been dressing everyday Women for over 20 years and I'm the founder of Everyday Style where we are on a mission to inspire women to love the way they look and give you the tools to make getting dressed easy. A few months ago, I did an episode about a couple of different wardrobe building strategies, hunting and gathering. If you need a quick refresher, hunting is when you are a woman on a mission. You've got a plan, you've got a list, and you mean business. This strategy usually means buying more at a time, but shopping less often. Once you've checked off your list, you are done until the next round. On the other hand, gathering is more of a slow style approach. A piece here, a piece there. There's no end goal in mind and you're never really finished. In that episode, I talked about the pros and cons to each approach and when to use each strategy to build the best wardrobe. We got great feedback from that episode and we will link it in the show notes in case you missed it. And we heard from lots of women who said it helped them be more thoughtful about how they were adding clothes to their closets. And since that is a big part of what we're trying to do at Everyday Style to be more thoughtful, I thought we'd go a little bit further into how we build our wardrobes and talk about the two main ways that we actually get clothing. Either shopping in stores or online is one better than the other, which saves you time, which saves you money, and most importantly, which one results in a better wardrobe. Today I want to talk about some pros and cons of each and share when one strategy is definitely better than the other. Let's start with the pros and cons of each, and since online shopping sales are on the rise, it seems to be the trend. Let's do that one first. The pros obviously convenience. You don't have to park, you don't have to fight crowds. You can do it any time of day or night. That is probably one of the biggest reasons Online shopping accounts for 40% of all apparel purchases in the United States, According to a report published on Capital One Shopping, which I will link to in the show notes. It actually has some really interesting data in there and I'm a data nerd. Maybe you are too. Now, I've talked to a lot of women who just can't be bothered to go to the stores to go to a mall. And considering my local shopping mall is the biggest mall in the country, I get it. The hike from Nordstrom to the loft for me requires cutting through an amusement park. And sometimes I just can't. I can't face it. I just can't. So I do some online shopping. Now. The second point in the online Shopping pro column is simply access. If your nearest mall is four hours away, online shopping is simply a must. And even if you live relatively close to a lot of shopping like I do, brands are closing brick and mortar stores forcing you to go online. The closest gap to me is 45 minutes away, which is crazy. There was a time when there were three gaps within I'd say 15 to 20 minutes of my house, of my house right now. And then of course, there are online only brands or stores that you just might not have in your area. So access of online shopping, it just can't be beat. The Internet makes every store accessible to everyone and it expands your options. Which is the third online shopping pro. One thing I repeat all the time, I think I probably said it in my last episode, is that the greatest thing about fashion right now is that everything you want is out there. You just have to find it. And I know I have talked about Google being my best shopping buddy for finding specific things that look best on me. You gotta go online to do it. The next online shopping pro is that you get to read reviews. I am such a fan of online shopping reviews. I remember back in the day of skinny pants, skinny Ponte pants to be exact. I found a pair online that I really liked, but every single review said they shrunk at least 2 inches the first time they were washed. Now obviously in your store you can try things on, you can see how they work for your body, but there's a lot of information to be gained about how things wash or how they hold up, things that you don't know when you're just wearing it for two minutes. And I just, I love reading reviews. It's like the kind women of the Internet have done a lot of the hard work. For me, that is a huge pro of online shopping. The last online shopping pro I want to talk about is that there are no pushy salespeople online. Except for those little chat boxes that pop up and ask you if you need anything. Like just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing. Now, I know this one might seem a little bit silly, but in my one on one shopping days with clients, one thing I was really surprised to discover is how much women disliked or were intimidated by the chipper salespeople. Like shouting the deals of the day at them. And don't even get me started about the piles of perfectly folded sweaters. So many of my clients would not mess up the pile to find their size. They would just rather leave that pile then get the sweater. Whereas online you don't have to worry about destroying Julie's handiwork to grab the large or the medium that's like right in the middle. So while there are a lot of good things about shopping online, there are some cons too. And for the most part, the cons of one way of shopping are just kind of the pros of the other. Right. So I'm just going to highlight a few that I think need a little bit more discussion that I might not touch on later. And the first online shopping con, it's a big one. And that is you are more likely to settle for good enough when you shop online. One example I can think of is the stitch fix days. Do you remember the stitch fix days? Yep. I would go to my clients houses and I would find lots of jeans and pants that were okay, they weren't horrible, but they didn't fit great. And more often than not I'd hear I got them in my stitch fix box. And that's what happens when you get one pair of jeans or one pair of pants sent to you. You can't go try other pairs on other sizes, other fits, other silhouettes, but it's good enough. The ones you got are good enough so you don't bother with a return or an exchange. And the idea of the first pair of jeans you try on being perfect, being the one, is kind of insane to me. In my 20 plus year career, I can remember only one or two times when the first pair of jeans I brought to the fitting room for a client was perfect. Like those were the one. And that is with decades of experience, knowing what to look for and putting women in those jeans day in and day out. Right. I knew the bodies, I knew the jeans, I knew the cuts, I knew all of it. And even I couldn't do it on the first try. And the problem with good enough is that it's rarely good enough. Good enough turns into a closet full of clothes that you don't wear because the rise is a little off or the neckline is a little low, or the sleeves are a little bit big. Like they didn't seem like big enough issues to return or exchange, but you feel a little frumpy in them, so you don't wear them and you find yourself shopping for the same things over and over. This is one big way that online shopping wastes money, and the other one is a hassle of returns. Raise your hand wherever you are, on a walk in your car, whatever. Raise your hand if you have online purchases hanging in your closet right now only because you forgot to return them. My hand is raised. I can admit it. Now, can that happen with in store shopping as well? Yes, but we'll talk about why that's different in a little bit. The truth is, if you're an online shopper, you're going to be an online returner. And if you're not committed to doing your returns, then you're an online money waster. There are a couple more online shopping cons, but they'll come out when we talk about in store shopping pros. So let's move on to that. The first pro of buying your clothes in the store is representation and accuracy. Often the reviews I read online say things like this looks nothing like the picture or the color was way off. When you shop in store, what you see is what you get. If you are committed to wearing your best colors, for example, it's so much easier to see what the actual color is in person. Also, in photo shoots, there's a lot of manipulation done to make the clothes look a certain way on a model. Like it might look fitted in the picture, but be really boxy in real life. When you're in the store, you can see what it really, truly looks like. The next pro of shopping in store is along the same lines, and that is fit. The number one reason online apparel purchases are returned is fit. I talked about the good enough issue in the online shopping cons, but let's dig a little bit deeper. I remember a client I worked with. We were shopping for suits. We were at Ann Taylor, and we kept going back and forth between the 10 regular and the 12 petite. Now a 10 regular and a 12 petite. If you've been listening for a long time, you know that those are pretty much the same size or just there's little variations, right? Sometimes the 10 regular would fit her best. And sometimes, especially in jackets, the 12 petite was better. She ended up with suits right off the rack that fit almost perfectly because we were kind of able to finagle the fit, something you could never do online. We probably tried on every size 10 and every 12 petite in the store just because they were there. And another example of fit is Zara. Zara, I love you, I truly do, but I never buy anything online. And we don't use them in capsule links because the sizing is truly mental. I don't know how else to describe it. In my closet right now from Zara, I have extra smalls, smalls, mediums, larges, and extra larges. And last week I was there trying on an extra large jacket that I could not button. How can you be every single size? I have no idea. And don't even get me started on online size charts. They're often completely useless or just sort of a whisper of a suggestion. The best way to know if something fits is just to put it on your body. And that's a heck of a lot easier to do in store, right? Yes, you can put online purchases on your body once you get them home, but if it's not right, you can't just simply try something else. You can't try the medium. If the large is a little bit small or big, you can't. You can't do it. You get one shot. And while we're talking about fit, the best way to almost eliminate in store returns is to try the thing on while you're there. Yes, I know it's a pain in the butt. I get it. But years ago, I made a commitment to myself, if I wanted to buy something in the store, I had to try it on. I don't care if I'm at Target or Nordstrom, TJ Maxx, I don't care. I don't buy it without trying it on. And it has almost eliminated in store returns. And that's how it's different than the online shopping returns. I try it on. Women used to tell me all the time that they didn't have time to try things out in the store. Okay, but do you think driving your butt back to the store to return or exchange that T shirt takes less time? No. You're there. Just commit to trying things on and watch the quality and fit of your wardrobe increase like crazy because it is free to try things on. And speaking of free to try things on in store shopping, pro number three is that you are more likely to try new things the Fact is, online shopping is a monetary commitment. Yes, you can put it on a credit card and return it before you have to pay for it. I get it. But you have to buy before you try. So when we shop online, we tend to go for the things we know are likely to work. Do that often enough and long enough and you're going to find yourself in a style red. On the other hand, when you're in the store and you see a trendy top or a dress catches your eye, but it's not the silhouette that you normally gravitate to, you can just take two minutes and try it on. There is no risk or hassle of having to return it. And it's just, it's easier to get out of your comfort zone, which I think is a huge pro of in store shopping. I tell our Style circle members that after they take the body shape course, they should go to the store and try things on putting into practice what they learned in the class. When you have access to more options right in front of you, you can play around with lines and volume and proportion and pattern. It's just kind of like a clothing laboratory that you don't have to finance. Another in store pro, and this is a big one in my book, is that you get to touch the fabric. Fabric is so important. Choosing the right fabrics is huge. When it comes to how your clothes look, fit is fundamental, right? We all know that. Like Stacy and Clinton say, if you don't have fit, you don't have style. But fabric is a close second. Fabric determines if your clothes look expensive or look shabby. And that's not always just a price point thing. I ordered a a really cute tweed blazer from Nordstrom. It wasn't real cheap, but I got it. And it was thin and scratchy. And even though it wasn't, it looked really, really cheap. I never, ever would have bought it if I saw it in store just based on the fabric. Beyond that, though, there are better and worse fabrics for your body shape. And they're not all created equal. Some cotton T shirts cling while others drape. Some ponti is thick and it hides everything and some is thin and shows it all. And if you have a really good understanding of fabric and what your body needs, you can read online descriptions and you can do pretty well. But if you are not well versed in what all the words and the blends mean, shopping in store is going to give you a huge advantage. The last in store pro I want to talk about today is the ability to get things last Minute I am not a fan of emergency shopping. As you probably know, I think nothing good comes out of shopping in a panic. Wardrobe wise, these end up to be pieces that you don't wear very often. You don't like the way they look. It's like you just need something not to be naked and you're willing to pay whatever it will require just to have something to wear, right? I'm not a fan. I even have an episode on emergency shopping which we will link to in the show notes. If you have not listened to it, go check it out. We are heading into peak emergency shopping season and I want you to be prepared. Anyway, the best way to do emergency shopping is not do it at all, but the second best way is in store. I mean there's really no other way to do it other than to go to the store, right? Otherwise you are left at the mercy of what Amazon can bring you like tomorrow. Or you're stuck paying exorbitant shipping costs which usually don't get refunded even if you return the items. And trust me, you are going to spend way more time trying to find clothes that can possibly arrive in time than you would just going to the store. So if you've got an event coming up that you waited too long to shop for, just hit the stores. It will save you time, it'll save you stress. And I know this from experience. I know this from very, very recent experience. Funny story, I was working on this episode last week and I plan to record it this week. Between then and now, I found myself needing to shop pretty last minute for a few things for a trip that I'm leaving for on Friday. Friday morning. Did I just go to the store? Did I just take my own advice? No. No I did not. I went online, I ordered a few things from Amazon which did arrive and they're fantastic. And I have an amazing Spanx dupe their Air Essentials dupe that I have to share with you. I'm going to link it in the show notes. So that was there and that's good. But I did find a few things at Gap and Banana Republic that said they would arrive in two or three days, which would be Wednesday or Thursday. So we're all good, right? Yet no. After couple hours after ordering, I got a confirmation that said they would arrive on Friday right after my plane takes off. I feel like the universe did this to me just to prove a point. So learn from my mistakes. Do as I say, not as I do. And if you really need something, don't Chance it just go to the store. Because now I am stuck having to drive that 45 minutes. And I spent more than 45 minutes shopping online for those things. Anyway, learn from it. Okay, now for the in store cons. And again, a lot of the cons are just the pros of online shopping. But here are two I want to highlight. First, less selection. Have you ever had an idea of what you wanted before you went shopping? It could be something as basic as like a black skirt, but all of a sudden there are no black skirts in the entire mall. It's like they were banned or something. You could go to every store in your town and find not one black skirt. It's just weird. The Internet will always come through for you. Also, special sizing, like petite plus or tall. I used to dread getting a tall client because there were two, maybe three stores that I could reliably find things in. And even as brands have become more size inclusive, it feels like brick and mortar stores, especially department stores, have become less size inclusive, forcing you to go online. My other in store shopping con is that you're probably going to end up ordering something online anyway, even if you go to the store. Do you remember the days of, oh, let me check in the back to make sure we have your size. Let me see if we have it. Friends. Those days are over. That's long gone. There is no backstock, there's no back room with racks and racks of clothes. But now the chipper little salesperson will say, we can order it online for you. And I remember another shopping trip with a client who was also looking for work clothes. And while the stores were full, they looked like they had a ton of merchandise. Everything she needed was sold out in store. There were some cases where we could do what I call Goldilocks sizing. Like if a 12 was too big and the 8 was too small, we knew the 10 would probably work, right? But there were also instances where all they had was like a double zero and a 16. Neither one was going to give us clues to how it would look on her or work for her. So we had to order everything online. And to me, this is the most frustrating part of in store shopping. Like, if I made the effort to drive to the store, it would be really nice to actually buy the clothes and go home with them. Now, if you're wondering why this is, what happened to why do we have to order things online even if we go to the store? It's because of how the Internet has changed retail distribution. Before the days of online shopping, Companies would allocate their merchandise directly to the stores. For easy math, let's say A brand has 10 stores and they made a thousand red sweaters. Each store would get roughly 100 red sweaters. Based on store location volume. It might be a little more, a little less. Stores would put some out and they would have the rest in the back. Right. If the store didn't have your size, they would call around to other stores and find it and have it shipped to you. Do you remember those days? I remember those days. Today, if that same brand makes a thousand red sweaters, they might send each store 20 or 30 and keep the rest in the warehouse. That way, people shopping online can order directly. And if a customer in a store needs a red sweater and a medium, there's one central place to find it. This is good for the brand because they don't have sweaters going unsold in one location and selling out in another. And they're not moving a ton of merchant around. But it leaves shoppers basically having to do both, hit the stores and shop online. And that can be really frustrating. Okay, so now that you have a brief history of retail distribution and you've heard my pros and cons for both shopping strategies, let's see how they stack up in a few areas. Let's start with saving time. Hands down, online shopping wins this one. Driving, parking, walking past roller coasters to get to the loft. I understand that's just me. But it all adds up. And frankly, when you're busy, it can be tough to devote a whole Saturday to going to the mall. So online shopping wins here. Saving money. To me, this is a toss up. Obviously, shopping in store at Old Navy is going to be cheaper than shopping online at Veronica Beard. Right? But all things being equal, to me, this is about how you shop, not necessarily in store or online shopping. It's easy not to spend at the mall if you just don't go to the mall, right? That's pretty simple. But when the mall shows up in your inbox every day, it's a little tougher. But either way, saving money is about not buying things that you don't need or won't wear, having a plan for what you want to buy, and not making dumb impulse purchases. I'm looking at you clearance section, both online and in store. All right, what about building a quality wardrobe for this? My definition of a quality wardrobe is one that fits well, looks good, makes you feel fantastic, bonus points for pieces that are built to last. Now, in theory, I would give this to in Store shopping. This is where being able to see the colors, touch the fabrics, try different cuts and sizes. That would all come together to create a wardrobe of nicely made pieces that make you look your best. Now, in reality, the quality of most easily accessible brick and mortar stores is kind of crappy, right? Yes, you will get a better fit in store, which to me is a big part of a quality wardrobe. And your fabric choices will probably be better. But unless you're shopping really high end stores, none of that stuff is made to last long. But overall, I think in store shopping has the edge here. Finally building a stylish wardrobe again, I could make a case for both. Yes, it is easier to try new styles in store, which helps to keep your style evolving. It helps you avoid style ruts. But if you want things that are unique and different and bring your signature style to life, the vast options the Internet offers, it just can't be beat. If you're an in store shopper though, boutiques can help you get that unique wardrobe, as well as curated stores like Anthropologie and Evereve, which are two of my favorites for finding unique, different pieces. All right, let's wrap up this episode with my opinions on when online shopping is the better strategy and when you're better off hitting the stores. Online shopping is best when you don't have access to stores in your area. Duh. Right? It's also best when you have more shopping challenges like either special sizing or when the styles that are current are not the ones you feel best in. I talked about that in my last episode. Lastly, online shopping is best when you have a very particular signature style that isn't represented in the mainstream brick and mortar stores on the Internet. Everything you need is out there. You just have to find it. So when is it best to shop in store? Well, first and foremost, when you want to buy pants. If at all possible, I recommend buying pants in store, especially jeans. These are pieces that make or break your wardrobe and it is worth it to invest the time to get them as close to perfect as possible. And that is so much easier to do when you have a bigger selection to choose from. Another time in store shopping is better is when you're newer to your style journey. Whether you are just discovering your best colors or you finally learned how to dress your body shape, or you're bringing your signature style to life. Having access to all the clothes in stores is tremendously helpful. You can buy a top online and it might be good for you, but if you don't have all the pieces to make the whole outfit work hanging there in your closet, you're still going to struggle and it takes forever to practice the principles when you're doing it one piece at a time. In store, you have access to different fabrics, different necklines, different sleeve shapes, all of that. You can test a lot of things out. Look at it this way, in the store is where you can gain clothing and style knowledge. Online is where you put it into practice. So if you don't already have that knowledge, you're going to struggle more online. As you have hopefully discovered today, there isn't one best shopping strategy, but there are times when one is better than the other and I hope this episode helps you realize how to use them both to build a fabulous functional wardrobe. If you are enjoying the Everyday Style School, be sure to subscribe or follow the show on whatever platform you like best. That way you'll never miss an episode and it helps other women discover the Everyday Style School so they can feel fabulous every day too. I will see you next time and until then, remember that your everyday matters. So get dressed for it and that's a wrap. Thank you for listening today. If you're loving the Everyday Style School podcast, I'd like to invite you to become a member of the Style Circle. It's our monthly all access membership that gives you everything we create to make style easy so you can save time and money, have easier mornings and more confidence all day long. You get our seasonal capsule wardrobe guides, all of the master classes we offer, and our exclusive members only podcast the Everyday Style School. Extra credit plus you're invited to the Facebook community where you can get even more style support and inspiration. I would love to get to know you and support your style journey. It's just $19 a month less than the cost of a clearance shirt you're never going to wear. Come join me and make your everyday style easier.