Best Practices In Shopping Luxury Online

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of things in our lives, not the least of which is the way we shop. Many of us haven’t set foot in any establishment for the past several weeks, ordering such essentials as groceries online and having drinks with our friends via Zoom or some equivalent. And as the country gradually opens for business—whatever your thoughts on this—we will undoubtedly remain wary of what we used to call “life” and all the face-to-face interactions it entails.

I, like others, sense that things will be irrevocably changed by the time we reach the juncture of a new normal, though I don’t know precisely what this means for the retail scene. Our self-constructed cocoons, inherently lonely as they are, feel safe, and security will be high on our minds for the foreseeable future. Besides, there aren’t many shopping needs that can’t be met right from our own permanently indented couches. Right?

Buying things that typically require interaction can be trickier. Like experiencing the buttery tactility of a new leather purse. Or testing the weight and balance of a coveted writing instrument, understood only by true pen aficionados.

Not so, says Chris Sullivan, president of Fahrney’s pen shop in Washington, D. C. Having perfected the art of online commerce many years ago, he says a high-touch, taste-driven object, like a pen, may indeed be successfully purchased sight unseen. In fact, very little of his company’s modus operandi has changed during the past several weeks, even though the brick-and-mortar downtown store has temporarily closed its doors due to the novel coronavirus. Website, phone and catalog sales are booming, he shares, and the majority of Fahrney’s sales—as usual—are via its uber-friendly web store and its equally amicable catalog.

“Our parents started Fahrney’s catalog in 1975,” says Sullivan of the pre-internet venture. “It was a time of infancy for the catalog industry itself, yet alone a writing instrument catalog. All the pen brands, distributors and sales reps said it would never work! ‘Why would the customer buy from a catalog sight unseen without trying the pen first?’”