Early in the pandemic, armed with step-by-step instructions, Joseph Clay committed to buying absolutely everything online.
Texas toast, blueberry waffles and diet root beer are repeat orders, spliced with the occasional addition: skull-shaped bookends, slippers for his partner and one overnight purchase to placate an aching tooth. He gladly shelled out $17.21 for a tube of Anbesol, an over-the-counter pain relieving gel, which Amazon got to him before dawn.
“My youngest daughter shops online constantly, so I called her up and said, ‘Hey, this online shopping thing — how does it work?'” said Clay, 60, a retired engineer in Nashville. “She gave me a quick rundown, and it just blew me out of the water.”
The coronavirus pandemic has reshaped habits and behaviors of even the most resolute shoppers as social distancing became a key line of defense against infection. But one of the most significant and unexpected shifts, experts