In this week’s online shopping basket: eight litres of organic semi-skimmed, four skinless chicken breasts and a Volvo C70 Convertible.
But isn’t it great? Your next second-hand car is only a click away. Let’s not worry about the classic online shopping slip-up — ordering four of them by mistake. Nor that moment when the paperwork tells you that there weren’t any Volvos so they’ve sent you a Vauxhall, instead. Think, rather, of the tiresome rituals we’ll be spared — the thoughtful walks around the outside of our prospective car, the tyre-kicking, the bending down in the vicinity of the exhaust and pretending we have the first clue what we’re looking for.
Instead, we’ll have the word of the mighty supermarket that at no time in its life has this car been stolen, written off or sawn in half for an innovative art installation. Furthermore, we’ll be picking a car drawn from company fleets and reputable lease sources rather than private chancers — although, actually, which would you prefer: a car that has been carefully tended by a private owner, or a tax perk that has been thrashed to death on the M6 by a sales rep?
Isn’t this the spirit of eBay gone slightly bonkers? The idea of outsourcing a test drive, and downloading a video of someone doing it on your behalf (part of Tesco’s service), seems to indicate that we know exactly what we want from a car these days, but don’t care how it drives.
But, hey — think of the Clubcard points. Not to mention the three-for-twos.