Meaningful Returns

My wife and I are Amazon Prime members, because it is an elite club of millions and millions of people who pay to be two-day shippers of innumerable items, for free. I mean, technically we pay for the free two-day shipping, but it doesn’t cost anything. And also to lease the rights to songs that we can listen to as long as we remain members of the elite club.

Maybe you, too, are an Amazon Prime member! Or maybe you aren’t but you’ve bought things from Amazon in your life. Either way, try this experiment:

• Go to Amazon dot com
• Hover your mouse over “Hello, [Your First Name] Your Account“
• Click “Your Orders”
• Go through each and every one of your orders going back to whenever you first bought a thing from Amazon (in my case, March 4th, 2009).

Now, how does that exercise make you feel? Would you feel better or worse if you were able to do this with Target? Or TJ Maxx? Or Home Depot? Or any other store? How many of these purchases were impulse decisions? How many were gifts? How many purchases would you take back if you could? How many have made life more pleasant for you and/or friends and family?

I wonder if our buying habits would change if we committed to do this experiment annually?