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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and we'll finish up today with a call in on what you're still buying online that maybe you started buying online at the beginning of the pandemic and what you've gone back into stores for. 212-433-WNYC. Our phone number is always 212-433-9692. Why are we asking this today? Well, if you haven't heard by now, today is a certain type of fake holiday as declared by one online seller that sounds like a rainforest in Brazil. You know that one. As that seller marks down a whole bunch of its products for one day only, it's basically online Black Friday, but in July. We wanted to use this excuse to check in on how you are or aren't shopping online. How have your online shopping behaviors changed in the last three years? Online shopping spiked, obviously, for so many people when the pandemic was new, but how about now when almost everyone feels comfortable going into stores again? What are you definitely still buying online and what are you trying to buy more frequently in person? Call us at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Are there certain websites that you definitely avoid, like that online behemoth maybe? So many of us relied on free two-day shipping during the early pandemic for anything from disinfected spray and masks to dumbbells and art supplies. Maybe now three years in, you're trying to wean yourself off of those sites. How are you doing that consciously for the good of the planet or the good of your local merchants, or the good of yourselves? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Somebody wrote recently for people in our area like, "People, you live in New York City, there are stores, you should go in them." Have you been telling yourself that and have you been acting on that as much as you think theoretically you should? 212-433-WNYC. How are you balancing the convenience of online shopping or the breadth of what you can get with a few clicks with the sustainability of it? So many trucks on the road just to take one example of the downside. Are there some items you definitely still do buy online? Tell us what they are and why you're sticking with them and how you've been wrestling with yourself over how much to kick that habit. 212-433-9692. The news site The City recently reported that Manhattan has some 20% fewer store employees than before the pandemic, even at this late date, and Amazon is a prime reason, the article said. This prime day, we're asking, are there any brick-and-mortar stores that you support in person just to make sure you support them in person, any small businesses you make sure to frequent, or have you noticed more and more how cashiers are disappearing and being replaced by self-checkout? Does that make you change where you shop or maybe feel less bad about shopping online? 212-433-9692.

Again, the central question, how conscious a decision is this for you now and how much of a source of tension within yourself as the pandemic has eased to the extent that it has. Hasn't totally gone away, by the way, I know two people who got COVID just in the last week. What are you still buying online and what are you back to in-person shopping for? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text your response to that question at that number. Adam in the East Village, you're on WNYC. Hello, Adam.

Adam: Hi. Adam, East Village, and the East End of Long Island. Brian, your show is a New York treasure. Thank you so much. I just wanted to thank you for this. I'm a vendor, a small employee-owned company. It's a hardware, garden, lumber and masonry, the real bricks and [unintelligible 00:04:32] of the business. We really encountered a real challenge during the first dark days of COVID. Then, we got really busy because the lines at the Home Depot and for Amazon were so ferocious that people went back to shopping locally. We want them to continue to do that. It's just a massive thank you. I use Citi Bike to call on my hardware stores in the five boroughs, Brian, so I know the staging areas for all the Amazon deliveries. I can walk up to any UPS truck and find you a carrot peeler to an extension ladder that's been bought online. Our stores really treasure our customers. We'll do the best we can to look after them. To please note that on the 31st of July, there's a real possibility of a UPS strike.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Adam: Please shop local, and thank you for this segment.

Brian Lehrer: Adam, so you're saying you not only support the brick-and-mortar stores, you supply the brick-and-mortar. Yes, he does. Michael in Inwood, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me on. I was telling your screener that I got married last year and my husband and I wanted to do a wedding registry. We decided to go to Macy's, this was in the suburbs, and do our wedding registry, but there was nothing there. The shelves were empty. The selection was so poor and there was so little help. [unintelligible 00:05:58] people around to assist you that we ended up doing all of our registry online because we couldn't find the stuff that we were looking for. The other place we registered was Bed Bath & Beyond which, of course, is gone now. I think, in some cases, I'd really like to go to the brick-and-mortar store, but when I get there, I'm so disappointed with the selection, and I can find everything I want online.

Brian Lehrer: All right, so for those reasons, sticking with more online than you did before the pandemic. Michael, congratulations on your wedding. From one Michael in Manhattan to another, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Hello.

Michael: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Hello.

Michael: Hi, Brian. Nice to talk with you after a long hiatus. I just feel that when Khrushchev came to visit America, he was amazed at the multitude and variety of what the American consumer has available at their fingertips. Let's continue shopping in a real store as a real shopper and not let Amazon do our-- You can let your fingers do the walking right on the produce [chuckles] on the shelf.

Brian Lehrer: On the shelf. Michael, thank you very much. Now, our first segment of the show today, which was about NATO, was the one where I expected Khrushchev to come up, not the one about online shopping, but thank you. Jennifer in Montclair, you're on WNYC. Hey, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Hi. Let me just turn off my radio. Are you there?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, we got you.

Jennifer: Hi. Oh, okay. I just wanted to say that while my heart is always in the place of wanting to shop locally, when the rubber meets the road and it's time to do it, I find that I've run out of time and I end up going back to the convenient thing, even though I don't want to, and [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: That's one of the big temptations, isn't it? It's so convenient.

Jennifer: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: A few clicks and then you know it's going to come tomorrow instead of taking the hour and a half or whatever it is to go to a particular store.

Jennifer: Yes. Maybe if more local stores had really micro local mailing lists and they could have some core items that you could have online and they could beat Amazon and have it delivered in 10 minutes, [chuckles] that would definitely make a big difference, for me anyways.

Brian Lehrer: More delivery, just local. Of course, we've got all those Instacart, Shipped, Uber picks things up and delivers all those things, which are their own blight and their own convenience. Jennifer, thank you very much. Maria in Sunset Park, you're on WNYC. Hi, Maria.

Maria: Yes. Good morning. Well, having been trained as an economist and having heard a long time ago in some class or another that communities, particularly communities that are working class and lower-middle class, need to have every dollar circulating the community at least three times for it to make a positive impact in the community for the present and the future. I've always adhered to the buying locally, even if I need to get on the bus or subway to-- locally not meaning just around the block, but mostly around your block,-

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Maria: -in Sunset Park where I've lived for decades, the person behind the counter is most likely your neighbor from across the street, from down the line, from a few blocks away, or your child and their child go to the same school and whatnot. Even during the pandemic, there were ways to get out of the house, which was good for you, and dress appropriately and go and pick up your food or go to the supermarket and bring it back home. There it is. I speak with people around that who lives the same way, and it kept our neighborhood going because you still have people who are still able to make-- Some people-

Brian Lehrer: Yes, so really, your message [crosstalk]--

Maria: - were still able to make a living by keeping it local.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and your message is-

Maria: Then, the last thing was [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: -to other people, it's worth the effort.

Maria: Right.

Brian Lehrer: Do take a little extra time in your day to make that effort. That's your message, right?

Maria: For yourselves, so that your neighborhood, the place that you're living, is stable, economically stable. The last thing I'm going to say,-

Brian Lehrer: Good point.

Maria: -it would probably get away with the congestion in the lobby of the building. On behalf of your neighbors having to bring up the packages from when they're dumped in the [unintelligible 00:11:07] where they're not safe because the deliveries are becoming less and less secure. Aside from the uptick on the theft of packages.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Maria: They know people work-

Brian Lehrer: It happens sometimes.

Maria: - all day, and blah, blah, blah, so that [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: [unintelligible 00:11:22] so you're saying get your neighbors personally involved. Maria, thank you so much for that call. Lisa in Western Connecticut, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hey, Brian. Like I told the [inaudible 00:11:36] I started during the pandemic to do my grocery shopping online, and I've continued. For me, I totally respect everything the last caller just said, but for me, it's a total life changer. It allows me more time to hang out with my family, to do other errands, to do other things rather than spending an hour and a half at the grocery store shopping for groceries every week.

Brian Lehrer: Again, it's the time involved, and the grocery deliveries are still from local merchants, so you feel okay about it?

Lisa: Yes, I do. There's still specialty items, local grocery stores that we really love that either me or my husband will pick up, but yes, we feel good about it, and we always tip the drivers, and it's just something that helps us get through the week to be in a better place.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, thank you very much. We can do one more here, maybe two. Carol on the upper west side, you're on WNYC. Hi, Carol.

Carol: Hi. I found it interesting that your first caller was a hardware store owner. What I miss the most from the neighborhood gentrifying up here, I'm in the area around the Museum of Natural History, is that we've lost three hardware stores and a stationary store, a couple of dry cleaners, a laundromat, and everything has gone instead into restaurants. It's become, I guess, the taxes are better for the city, but it's driven me to go online more and more. I never thought I'd buy a shovel on Amazon, but [chuckles] that's what's happening now.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's interesting about the hardware stores, and you're right, the first caller was a hardware store supplier singing the blues a little bit about what's happening there. I had the experience myself just recently of wanting to buy a new smoke alarm for my apartment. I wanted to do it in person at a hardware store, and the one in the immediate shopping area near me, that was gone, and I had to walk many, many blocks. You're right, the hardware stores, I guess, are among the things that are going. Carol, thank you very much. Thanks to everybody for sharing your shopping logs. We really appreciate it and all the reinforcement for shopping local when you can, right? That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen produces our National Daily Politics podcast. Our interns this summer are Brandon St. Luce and Katarina Engst. We had Shayna Sengstock and Milton Ruiz today at the audio controls. I'm Brian Lehrer. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for Allison.

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