When Did Shopping Stop Being Fun?

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’s real, and it’s part of the story.

But I don’t think it’s the whole story. I think something else is going on, and it’s less about fear and more about boredom.

There was a time when shopping online felt like discovery. You’d land on a site and stumble onto something you didn’t know you wanted. Net-a-Porter, Farfetch — in their early days, these places had a point of view. Now? I couldn’t 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.

And then there’s Amazon. I’ll be honest: I have a hard time even clicking “buy” these days, and it’s not about price or convenience — it’s about how the company treats its people. The only reason I’m still tethered to Amazon at all is my Kindle. I’ve 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’t even exciting, there’s no reason to keep clicking.

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

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.

Because here’s 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’s the thing algorithms can’t replicate — a place, not just a transaction.

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

Retail didn’t die. It just got boring for a while. The fix isn’t a better algorithm — it’s better rooms, run by people with a point of view who take care of you and know your style.