Online shopping vs the shopfront experience: and the winner is?

I love shopping. I love browsing, day-dreaming, admiring great design and generally enjoying the whole retail experience in my favourite stores. Which I guess makes me a little old school, especially in light of the rise and rise of online shopping. Online shopping is open 24/7, at your leisure, usually at discounted prices, all in the comfort of your own home. Why then, do I continue to hesitate embracing the online trend? I have friends and family who swear by online shopping. Even peer pressure hasn’t swayed me. For the past few years I have been encouraged/ cajoled and sort of brow beaten into embracing the trend into online shopping. Still, I hesitate. Wandering past one of my favourite retail spaces today (Hero and Leander: divine homewares store) it dawned on me. For me the retail experience is tactile and hands on. I love to feel the fabrics, pick up and admire that treasure I’ve found, chat to the owners/ retail assistants to get ideas. Online doesn’t stack up for me in that space…yet. Since moving back to the lovely yet kind of isolated West Coast from France, I have become acutely aware of how far away the rest of the world is…in a retail sense. Is that where online shopping can step in to cover the distance… in a flash? And yet I still hesitate. How about you?  Do you prefer retail or shopfront?  Any favourite haunts to recommend? Enjoy xx