The love that only brick and mortar gives 💞

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. So as a prepared parent, I ordered a “classroom” box of Ring Pop Tongue Painters for my daughter’s third grade class. Yes, I Amazoned the purchase. Yes, these “tongue painters” probably have some gross chemicals in them. Don’t judge me. Sometimes I eat Doritos, too.

These “classroom” Ring Pops come in packaging that allows you to Sharpie on each kid’s name, which I suppose makes the distribution more personal. I didn’t spend the extra $8 on the matching cards that let your kid write individual notes. Alice had to write “unique and specific” notes to each of her classmates in second grade, and it was a reeeeeeaaaaal challenge for a girl who inherited my mother-in-law’s eastern bloc shaped heart.

Preparing for the big day in our own home and being subjected to all of the consumer marketing online and at CVS telling me to buy something red and heart-shaped made me, naturally, think about brick-and-mortar retail and how Valentine's Day is really a love letter to the in-person exchange that only happens in real life — it’s energetic, it’s exciting, and it just can’t be replicated online.

When you have a brick-and-mortar business, you engage with your customers face to face. Sometimes these engagements are quick and cheerful. Sometimes they’re interminable and feel like hand-to-hand combat. But whatever happens, it happens on a human-to-human level which is much, much more demanding than the human-to-Shopify interaction.

Yes, making sales online is hard. Shouting into the void of the internet is expensive and ever-changing, but there’s no requirement that you use your precious emotional energy.

I’m certain that all of us who do or have lived the brick-and-mortar life can attest to the fact that there are some customers who feel like trusted friends, whose presence feels like warm sunshine. And that there are SOME OTHER customers whom we see crossing the parking lot toward our door and make us decide that RIGHT NOW is the perfect moment to hide in the back and reconcile the checking account. Sometimes you can pull off the disappearing act, and sometimes you have no choice but to get on stage and act, because retail is theater.

Why is it that in 2024 classmates still exchange Ring Pops and carnations and (if you’re my sister’s children) some very cute homemade crafts that took time and attention? Because in-person exchange, even among the frostiest of frenemies, feels better than an e-card. Just like good brick-and-mortar feels better than good e-comm.

Think about it — if you’re looking for the perfect outfit for your 30th high school reunion, there’s a big difference between scrolling a website on your phone and filtering for occasion | color | silhouette and the feeling of walking into a store, meeting the eyes of another human being and saying, “I’m going to my 30th reunion and I have to look absolutely fierce and I hate patterns.” The former is you trying to see, and the latter is you feeling seen.

Choosing to have a brick-and-mortar business is choosing to engage in a classroom Valentines exchange. Sometimes your connections are meaningful, sometimes they’re not, and that’s okay. The energy we get from the great exchanges really does feel like true love.