We have the perfect solution to all your online shopping woes – leader comment

According to consumer watchdog Which?, more than half of us had delivery problems last Christmas after ordering goods online.

Shopping the old-fashioned way avoids the potential delivery problems associated with online retail (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

Online shopping, we love it, but also we hate it too. On the one hand, it’s so convenient to order something that looks wonderful with just a few clicks.

But then they try to deliver when we’re out and we have to go to the depot. Or it’s the wrong colour or wrong thing entirely or it’s bashed and broken, so we have to send it back. Hours spent on hold trying to get a refund, an explanation or even just to talk to a human! Grrrr.

And all these problems are even worse when we’re up against a deadline, like trying to sort out presents for Christmas.

According to a survey for consumer watchdog Which?, more than half of online shoppers had at least one delivery that did not go as planned last Christmas.

But we all know a solution. A way to buy something with 100 per cent confidence that it’s exactly the thing we want and that it’s in pristine condition. A way to ensure we will, absolutely definitely, have it physically in our hands on the day that we actually need it.

Yes, we can go into an actual shop, look at the thing we want to buy and walk out with it, there and then. Wow. If shops didn’t exist, we’d probably invent them.