Remember Amazon? A ton of schemes for how to buy something from there, paying stupid money for shipping, going through middlemen, fake American addresses in Nevada. And whenever I went there on a business trip, I’d get a list of things to buy: clothes, some shit for the kids like Lego, about 20 liters of LISTERINE for everyone, “good” shampoo, some coconut cream for their mugs. Once someone ordered a goddamn fucking bulldozer, 1.2 m by 70 cm, delivered to my hotel room. FOR THEIR KID’S BIRTHDAY. Of course I told them to fuck off — no warning, and besides, where the hell was I supposed to fit that thing?
We were real aborigines, finally getting our hands on a Spanish galleon whose crew tossed beads and bits of glass down to us.
And now? The last time I was in Elfland was 2018. After five other trips in 2011-2013, by then I couldn’t even be bothered to fly there. Well, except that Apple gear is priced like a human being would price it there, not 180,000 UAH for a damn M1 Max Pro. I didn’t even know what to buy there, although the hunger was the same as on the first trips: I went into outlets, walked around, looked. Total crap.
The sneakers I wear somehow don’t cost $30 there, like people wrote. I wouldn’t wear those sneakers even to take out the trash (I mean to the bin next to the house, not like the Galicians who dump a whole truckload somewhere near Zhytomyr).
A shitty jacket in the Sportmaster-Columbia style — $100. Something decent and modern — boom, it’s already $300. Of course, I think if you live there permanently, then Columbia becomes a fine jacket and sneakers sewn out of crap become fine too; this usually comes with fairy tales about how billionaires over there walk around in ragged pants and drive Polish-made Lanoses. Well, maybe I just never hit the mega sales. But everything I bought there clothing-wise didn’t cost < $100. And everything I bought there for 200-300 I still wear. My dad still wears my winter Marmot. 10 years have passed. The damn suspenders bought at a Harley store haven’t stretched or snapped to this day. Even the print on the T-shirt looks like new…
And I won’t even start on gadgets. I used to ignore AliExpress until my wife started buying all our underwear, devices and other odds and ends there. Flashlights, knives, toys, figurines, cases, PRINTER TONER(!). For the last two years I’ve even been picking the kids’ presents there. We have something like 30 liters of Lego. 10 liters of it is Chinese. You can’t even tell which is which anymore. And then I find out by accident that the savages here still pray to Amazon, some even order from Britain, at stupid pound prices.
And if you need something urgently, or Ali doesn’t have it (which is almost impossible), there’s Rozetka. Forget same-day delivery — they brought bamboo mugs to the pickup point next to my house 3 hours after I ordered. Ordered at 10 a.m., at 1 p.m. they texted me to come pick it up.
For clothes I’ve switched to the Ukrainian brand Turbat. Thank God there’s a store right around the corner: https://www.gorgany.com/. The footwear there is, admittedly, a fucking nightmare made for mountain-climbing vagabonds, but everything else is sweet. The only thing is they could tighten up the quality of the hardware a bit. Other than that, I’m very happy — all my jackets, pants and trousers are now ours :)
If someone had told me in 2011 that this would happen… I wouldn’t have believed it. We’ve truly made huge progress over the last decade. If something appears over there, you don’t have to wait 5-8 years like before; it pops up here within a year, or even sooner. The power of globalization.