Taking Chances: Online Shopping, Risk, and the Studio Mindset

In previous posts, I mentioned that I was never much of an online shopper. In fact, my very first online purchase triggered a fraud investigation—my credit card company simply couldn’t believe I had ordered something on the internet. Until my studio redesign, I had made maybe two online purchases in my entire life, both of them books.

Then the studio rebuild happened—and my credit card started getting tired.

Somewhere along the way, I became a frequent online shopper, mostly for studio supplies. Cables, adapters, shelves, hubs, and all the small but essential pieces that quietly keep a studio functioning. That alone marks a pretty dramatic shift for someone who strongly preferred brick-and-mortar stores.

The Original Resistance

One of my biggest turnoffs with online shopping was simple: you can’t touch what you’re buying. You can’t feel the build quality, turn it over in your hands, or get that instinctive sense of whether it’s the right tool for the job.

Instead, you’re relying on:

• Product descriptions being accurate
  
• Reviews being honest and relevant
  
• The delivery system working as intended
  
• Your own intuition being correct
  

That’s a long chain of trust based entirely on text, photos, and star ratings.

For small items—cables, USB hubs, adapters—the risk feels manageable. If something isn’t great, you shrug and move on. But what about purchases in the hundreds of dollars? That’s where things start to feel uncomfortable for me.

The Discomfort Zone

I’ve mentioned before that spending hundreds of dollars online is still outside my comfort zone. I’m not fully convinced I can do it—though I suspect we may find out soon.

There’s a project coming up in my studio that’s fairly significant. Not “big” in a flashy way, but big in terms of how it would affect workflow and daily use. To make it happen properly, there’s a specific piece of gear that would be extremely helpful—borderline necessary.

Here’s the dilemma.

Locally, the item would cost about $350 CAD plus tax. However, with a manufacturer discount I have from previous purchases, ordering it from the U.S.—even after import fees and taxes—would actually be cheaper than buying it locally.

Logically, the choice is obvious.

Emotionally? Not so much.

The Catastrophe Loop

In my mind, every possible disaster plays out:

• The package gets lost in shipping
  
• It’s misrouted at the border
  
• It arrives defective
  
• It’s stolen off my front steps
  

I know this sounds a little ridiculous, and for many people it wouldn’t even register as a concern. “It’s a few hundred dollars—no big deal.”

But coming from a brick-and-mortar mindset, it’s surprisingly hard to break away from that sense of physical reassurance: walking into a store, walking out with a box, knowing exactly where your money went.

Risk Is Everywhere—Even in the Studio

This whole situation got me thinking more broadly about how we weigh risk as studio owners.

We take risks all the time without really noticing:

• How much expensive gear are we willing to stack on a single shelf?
  
• How much do we trust that shelf?
  
• What kind of power bar are we using?
  
• Are we plugging thousands of dollars’ worth of gear into something with no surge protection?
  
• How much are we willing to spend on power conditioning—or not?
  

Every studio is full of quiet risk-versus-reward decisions. Some are financial, some are technical, and some are just habits we’ve never questioned.

Where This Leaves Me

So here I am, standing on the edge of a relatively small—but personally significant—leap. If I push through my hesitation and place that order, my first major 2026 studio project can begin. If not, I’ll wait, save a little more, and take the longer route.

Neither option is wrong. It’s just another example of how comfort zones, habits, and psychology shape the way we build our creative spaces.

So here’s a question I’ll leave you with—one I’m genuinely curious about:

What risks do you take in your own studio, knowingly or not?

As for me, we’ll see how brave I’m feeling when that checkout button is staring back at me.