Greater than 14 purchases per week. Spending a long time searching and acquiring said purchases. Unsuccessful attempts at decreasing purchases. Interpersonal problems due to purchases. Craving Amazon can be compared to addiction, nowadays. Using Amazon in hazardous situations. High tolerance to Amazon. Withdrawal symptoms. I have to come clean here. I think I have a problem.
I wasn’t always like this. I used to go out. I used to go into stores. I used to flip through clothes on the rack. I used to try on shoes. Then Lockdown hit. And that was it for me and the 197 million people around the world who had nothing else better to do than log into Amazon (https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/amazon-statistics/#:~:text=In%20the%20world%20of%20ecommerce,devices%20and%20visit%20Amazon.com.).
This year was rotten. Maybe for you, but not Amazon. Net profits soared 84% and sales hit $386 billion (https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleykohan/2021/02/02/amazons-net-profit-soars-84-with-sales-hitting-386-billion/?sh=6122e80f1334). In a world where COVID-19 cases have nearly hit 118 million and deaths, 2.6 million – as of March 10, 2021 (https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6). And yet, this has not affected my shopping habits. When I click on Amazon, I’m not thinking of the stock market, I’m not thinking of the numbers. I’ve gone without real living for a year now. The least I could do is enjoy what little of it may be left. It’s not like I’m saving up for a vacation any time soon. So there you have it. That is what Amazon has become for me – mini vacations I take on what used to be a yearly basis, but now feels like a weekly, if not every-other-day occurrence. Amazon is that good. They know exactly what they are doing. They store your credit card number. That way, you don’t even have to get up to reach for your credit card in your wallet, thereby eliminating those seconds of doubting yourself on whether you should buy the complete series of “M*A*S*H or buy another home blood pressure kit.
I will probably need some kind of Aversion Therapy to cut all this Amazon out. I feel like being addicted of using and buying from Amazon. I know I am not the only one. They will probably need to stick me in a swivel chair and swirl it about. They will probably ask me to follow their finger with my eyes to strengthen my neural synaptic connections. If all else fails, they will have to confiscate all my electronic devices. Better yet, cut the electricity while you’re at it. To kick the Amazon habit, you really have to go cold turkey.
I can imagine how the weeks ahead are going to be like as I abstain from Amazon. This will be like watching Gene Hackman squirm about all sweaty in delirium in a prison cell trying to detox from heroin in the movie “The French Connection II”. I don’t think I can take that. Even a box of chocolate will not make me feel any better in a world without Amazon.
