I’m not just asking for the benefit of blind people like me, I really want to know how someone does it in general without it becoming an enormous pain in the ass.
To be clear, I’m not talking about buying things like funny t-shirts or sports hats. I don’t even think I’m talking about underwear, which I’ve managed to successfully online purchase once or twice in my life even though they’re not the best things I’ve ever worn. I’m thinking more along the lines of things like pants or shoes, things that never ever fit the way the size on the label says they should fit.
Shoes would be bad enough for me. I’ll never buy a pair of shoes without trying them on first. They’re generally less of an ordeal than pants, but still enough of a process that there’s no way in hell I’m picking them out anywhere but in a store. Part of my problem is that I’ve got one messed up foot, so what fits fine on the normal one can sometimes feel awful on the other, to the point where it’s almost like I’m wearing shoes from two different pairs. It takes some time and effort to get things just right, the sort of time and effort that I can imagine getting me on a first name basis with the girl at the post office and banned from an online shop for making excessive returns.
But pants would be even worse than that. I don’t know if it’s a rule or what, but no two pairs of pants fitting the same happens often enough that it feels like it has to be a standard. The non-standard standard, I bet they call it. And I don’t just mean the same size fits differently across brands. I’ve literally had times when I’ll find something I like, decide to buy a few of them and then when it comes time to wear one of the ones I didn’t try on I have to double check that I didn’t buy the wrong size by accident because they wear so much differently than their friends. Or have you ever found while trying things on that the smaller size fits more loosely than the bigger one? That happens to me all the time. It’s weird. And none of this takes into account things like texture or whether or not I like the pockets and the buttons, details I can’t get from even the best description.
As a blind guy, I should love online clothes shopping. It should make things so much simpler. I’m sure for somebody out there it does, but I just don’t see how.