In support of your local new age shop

[bogiesan]

When you click "place order" at an onine shoping site, what exactly happens next? You may not agree with the advocacy position of this piece but the concept is worth considering. Is saving a few percent by shoppig online meaningful to your budget or, if you knew a bit more, would it offend your political or ethical beliefs?

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor

I'm a leftover liberal socialist from the 70s who works for a regulated monopoly. Still, I care, I support movements, I try to live justly--when convenient. I have spent lots of money online when I could have ridden my bike or driven to a local shop. I won't be ordering tarot cards from Overstock or Amazon ever again.

My choices for unique, locally owned bookshops and fascinating new age emporia have diminished largely because of online sources. Give your local merchants a chance to earn your money. Buy your tarot decks and tarot literature locally if you can. How do you make your living? Is it possibly threatened by online alternatives?

True, Aeclectic gets a spiff when tarot purchases are made from certain online shops but, heck, you could pay for membership and know your money went to a cause you support.

 

[PathWalker]

I only buy online when it's second hand, or so obscure or hard to find that my local shop - who uses a few select suppliers because of the 'minimun order' she's required to place, can't get it for me.

I bought all my gifts at xmas in the high street, except for those that the stores couldn't supply in time.

Amazon will be the death of our small independent book shops unless we shop there more - quite true.

(Another left over liberla socialist obviously )

 

[Bhavana]

you know, I would love to do this. However, the two major reasons I don't is that, for one, the majority would rather buy online - and the majority wins. Second, the selection in your average new age shop just keeps getting worse and worse. It's all Lisa Hunt and whatever the latest commercial cartoony wicca deck du jour is. If I want to be able to choose from a selection even REMOTELY more interesting than that, I have to drive all the way into Philadelphia - and the last time I did that, to a store that used to have a wonderful selection, it was more of the above, with the addition maybe of the Thoth, the Rider Waite, and Tarot of the Cat People. So in the end, I wound up driving all that way into the city and only bought some incense and a few crystals. The online choices are just much more appealing. Also, once you have purchased all the commercial or more common decks available, then what? Most collectors move on to the self published or harder to find decks. They are not going to be at the new age shop, that's for sure.

 

[PAMUYA]

I try to support any local shop, new age or not. Of course I pay more, if I don't get good service I won't go back. Our local new age store (we only have one) has a good selection of all types... I am a student of Buddhism and they carry literature on that as well. Their tarot selection is limited, but I do not collect decks, so those who do this shop would not work for them.

I am not a socialist, or liberal or conservative, but I am a flower child of the sixties who likes to see family buisnesses survive, not being a slave to government or big business.

 

[Fianic]

Most new wge books don't have the books I want. Although I do go there for crystals and candles.

The one shop that does have some of the books I want usually has it at twice the price compared to Amazon.

 

[Yineth]

I would honestly love to support the New Age shops in my area, but they're really just too far away for me to get to. The nearest is maybe an hour and a half away.

I was lucky enough to visit one of the closer New Age shops in my area. I'll have to admit I was somewhat disappointed with the interior and the stock. I guess I was hoping more to enter into a shop that was less Buddhism-focused, hehe. I definitely felt uncomfortable about the location of where the shop was. Street parking is the bane of my existence >_<
I'm not trying to hate on the shop and its owner, but I do feel the location could have used a different scenery at least (ie. Not next to so many Hookah bars and tattoo parlors.)

I've never tried Hookah or received a tattoo, so my opinion here may be very biased :I

 

[Zephyros]

I don't order online (I don't know why, I'm probably just too old for new-fangled things) so by default I do go to the (few) metaphysical shops available here. Problem is, I'm usually more knowledgeable than the salespersons, and I agree with what others have said here: you find the same decks in store after store. It seems there is some sort of "Tarot starter kit" every New Age store gets, and that seems to be enough.

And if you're talking books, it's even worse. There's nothing, simply nothing I want in regular shops. I don't want the last Rachel Pollack, with all due respect, I want esoterics, Golden Dawn, "evil" books that shouldn't be sold! But New Age stores have... the same old same old, every time.

 

[Morwenna]

I'm lucky enough to have a "witch shop" in the next town, so I buy my decks there nowadays. I did buy a couple decks at a large store. I've bought from other small metaphysical shops when they were open, and I've bought from independent dealers at conventions. I've lately been buying from other AT members. But I've never ordered a new deck online. There are a few that I'd have to order from the companies, I think, or the creators, but that's that.

 

[GoldenWolf]

Maybe I am being pessimistic, but Amazon has already caused the demise of many independent bookstores, New Age and of other varieties. Even some of the large bricks and mortar bookstores like Borders have fallen in the face of Amazon's business simply because Amazon doesn't maintain storefronts with all the expense that goes with them. I now see that Amazon has blurbs on their pages for individual decks and books that indicate that they will pay you X amount for your used copy. Are they trying to run indie used booksellers out of business too now?

I have to admit that with gas prices so high that I can rarely afford to justify a special trip to a New Age store these days. If I have other errands in the neighborhood, yes. Yes, the selection in most stores is geared toward the lowest common denominator. They can't afford to have dozens of more obscure decks that do not sell on their shelves unless they are savvy enough to have an Internet store where they may sell. The bookstore that I read in in the early 2000s hung in there with a drastically reduced stock until it finally went under around 2005. Most indie bookstores do special orders of some sort. It probably will not arrive in the next week though. So it's difficult for local places to compete in terms of the big selection and (almost) instant gratification that Amazon has gotten us to expect.

So I am not happy about it either, but I'm afraid that Amazon has already decimated the local book/Tarot market. I think most local shops are surviving on classes, in person readers, meditation groups, and other services that are more difficult to replicate online, at least at present.

 

[TarotWoman]

Unfortunately we don't have a "local" New Age shop or bookstore in our town, wish we had, but they closed years ago. The only place that sells a limited selection if books in this category is W H Smith's ... and then it's the odd pack of angel cards and self books.

I'd love to have somewhere nearby to go have a good rummage in