In person, not optional
One of the darker moments in Draft’s history involved a prospective client who ran a fragrance brand, who kept talking about how challenging it was to smell fragrances through the internet. I apparently didn’t understand this fact, because he started screaming at me about it, which is always a great way to start a new client relationship.
The problem, of course, is that he was not factually wrong. There really are a few things that you absolutely need to try in person. There are websites that try to handle the fragrance thing, but nobody is going to argue that they represent any sort of adequate substitute for your own olfactory, regardless of how much of a fragrance nerd you may happen to be. One can extend this to personal care supplies, if they wish, with the possible exception of skincare, which is so far down the chemist hole that few people truly care how it smells or looks.
Stationery has no substitute. Recommendations are fine here, but the feel of a pen in your hand, and the experience of using paper, requires corporeality. This is why JetPens has sampler packs of their most popular pens, and why there are such extensive reviews of stationery.
Clothes, despite the internet’s best attempts, have no substitute. You must buy in person. There is no realistic replacement for the texture of fabric, for examining stitching & seams, for understanding the construction of a garment. If you read text, you probably know we believe very strongly in slow fashion, and so there are arguable safe bets on this front. But in order to branch out beyond the safe bets, you must go in person.
There are certain individual products that have no substitute. One looks at Kaikado and wonders why their tea canisters cost $200. Use a Kaikado, though, and you start to understand. The tolerances, durability, and patina are impossible to show through any website. Products that are frequently ripped off are also hard to differentiate: a picture of an Eames lounge and a picture of a ripoff will not show you the differences between leather, cushion fill, and plywood. And Fuji have built a multibillion-dollar business on making a camera line that looks rather similar to another camera line that costs over ten times as much.
I work in an industry that prides itself rather heavily on being able to provide something that is kind of like the thing, but is not actually the thing. When we contemplate what is convenient versus what must be made real, we start to find the contours of what is possible – and the limits of the industry.