Do you remember shopping for furniture and other big-ticket items before the internet? Personally, I've spent far too many hours walking up and down endless aisles of furniture, whether as a kid with my parents or as an adult with Dave, searching for a new couch, or table, or bed. Big purchases always seemed to take forever!
And although I now vastly prefer the online shopping experience, where I can shop comfortably from my favorite chair in the living room, it hasn't eliminated the overwhelming prospect of choosing one item from dozens-perhaps even hundreds or thousands-of options. We have more options than ever today, and I often find the longer I spend looking, the more they all start to blur together.
I also have a tendency to get distracted from my goal while shopping online, and I often end up looking at something totally different from the thing I actually need.
So in order to counter these tendencies to become overwhelmed or distracted while shopping online, I've been working on a system of sorts to keep myself on track. Since I'm currently in the process of shopping for a new bed, I thought that today I'd demonstrate how I've been using this system throughout the process, because I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who could use some guidance when it comes to making a big purchase.
I rarely start researching a major purchase knowing exactly what I want, so I find it helpful to start by checking out what my favorite brands have in stock.
In the context of my search for a new bed, I started by looking at the beds available from Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, Burke Decor, Magnolia Hearth and Home, McGee & Co., and Joybird.
While perusing my favorite brands' websites, I had the Notes app open on my computer and used it to write down any aspects or features of the beds I was seeing that appealed to me. That way, I could use those keywords in searches to find the kind of styles that interested me.
One of the best places I've found for useful search keywords is the product description of items you're drawn to. Here are some examples of the keywords I found in product descriptions and put in my Note to use in my bed search:
The more specific you can be with your search terms, the more you can narrow your results down to options you actually want to consider. For instance, I noticed that I was drawn to the beds I was seeing that had a slightly arched headboard, so I added "arched headboard" to my search.
When I'm shopping on Google, I find it useful to spend time in both the "shopping" tab and the "images" tab. As you see images you like and click on them, it will bring up additional images similar to that one, which can help you find other options to consider (and I make sure to take screenshots of things I like in case I lose track of the image or browser tab).
By honing the search keywords and using both the shopping tab and images tab during your search, it may not take long before you find the seemingly perfect option. But all too frequently, that option ends up being too expensive, out of stock, the wrong size, or coming from somewhere that doesn't ship to where you live.
At least in my experience, disappointments like these are virtually guaranteed when you're shopping around for a big purchase online, so it helps to expect it as part of the process. Another thing that may be useful in separating the wheat from the chaff is reading customer reviews. (No one review contains the universal truth about an item, but reading several can help give you a better idea of whether a product is actually as good as it looks.)
Of course, in some cases it won't be possible to let go of that seemingly perfect option once you've seen it. If it's sold out or not available through a certain retailer, you may be able to find something similar (or possibly even the same item) elsewhere with by doing a reverse image search with a feature called Google Lens.
You can use this feature in either the standard Google Search app or the Google Photos app to scour the internet for an item shown in a photo. (You can find specific instructions for using Lens in Google Photos here, and for using Lens in Google Search here.)
This is especially useful when you spot something you love in a photo of something completely different, like the sofa in an image that's focused on throw pillows, for example. Searching with Google Lens can help you find that sofa, though I will warn you that this can turn into a never-ending rabbit hole. (I may have stayed up WAY past my bedtime on more than one occasion doing this.)
When I use all these tips and tricks throughout my search, I usually end up with a list of options, each of which has pros and cons. These are the options that ended up making the "short list" of finalists in my bed search:
From your short list, you can start eliminating options and coming to a final decision. There's a lot to consider, so take your time and trust in yourself to make a good decision. ("Good" is the operative word here-there's rarely a single "right" decision in these situations!)
Once I had considered the various styles, prices, shipping, and assembly of each option, and did a bit of back-and-forth (a time-honored step in making a big purchase), I ended up choosing this leather-upholstered bed from Article.
So there you have it! This is my method for making a big purchase while minimizing distractions and avoiding getting overwhelmed. If you use this method in the future, be sure to let me know how it works for you!
Do you have a system you use when shopping for a big purchase?