I really don't enjoy going in to stores to shop. Pickings are slim. I like shopping online with Loft being a favorite.

I'm with you --- give me a nursery any day. Don't care for in store shopping anymore. Online serves me just fine for the most part.

I like greenhouses, grocery stores, and an on-line jigsaw puzzle outlet. All places with a large selection to prowl through, and an element of surprise at what catches your eye this time.

Grocery stores and hardware stores are my favourite in-person shopping.

I love shops that have handmade items (pottery, blown glass, metalwork, paintings-anything!) from local artisans. Don’t always buy, but I love to browse to get inspiration. In New Hampshire, we have the League of New Hampshire Craftsman who has shops throughout the state. Beautiful items!

I love shopping for plants too! Sometimes if I'm in the mood I like to look around thrift stores. Everything else I do curbside if possible.

Bookstores, of course!

Shopping is strictly a necessity for me, not a recreational activity. I prefer getting what I want or need by spending the least amount of time and for a good while, that has meant a lot of online shopping. And by what I and my kids have long called "beeline shopping". You go to the store, make a quick beeline to what you want to buy, pick it up, pay for it, walk out. All of them (male and female) do that, it's become a shared family tradition. ;-)

My favorites are a few local independent shops that feature items for the home, mostly things I find nowhere else, and some vintage items. For those of you in the Bay Area, I’m thinking of The Gardener and Tail of the Yak, both in Berkeley. I love browsing shops, but have zero interest in malls and department stores. When I travel, I love to explore local grocery and hardware stores and of course, vintage shops.

I'm with you, garden centers and nurseries are my favorite. I also enjoy grocery shopping though. Usually. For clothes and shoes I stick with online shopping, as it is not my favorite activity. I used to love going to TJ Maxx and stores like it. It is where most of my first pink kitchen items were found. But Its a good 45 minute drive away now and not worth it to me anymore.

I love love love shopping for holiday decorations too. Every year, I will watch videos on YouTube of people who go to the big box stores and scope out the new Halloween and Christmas stuff so that I can make a plan. I love the feeling of a car full of multicolored lights and cheesy Christmas or Halloween nonsense.

I like all sorts of stores. As china said, we are fortunate to have some wonderful local shops in the Bay Area. I like art, books, ceramics, housewares, furniture and clothes. I enjoy browsing from time to time, but the internet might have spoiled me for choice.

I liked shopping with my mother. First, she had better taste than I have and would choose better clothes for me than I would. Second she and I shopped at the same pace, quickly, no hemming and hawing. Without her, shopping is pretty dull.

Elmer, my children might be distantly related to yours. Spending more than 15 minutes at Nordstrom is their idea of torture.

Grocery stores, as I love to cook, and plant nurseries, as I love to garden.

I love to browse a nursery. If it has a gift or garden art, planters shops attached all the better. The very few that have a little cafe included where I can get a coffee or drink, and I'm good for at least half a day. I miss Smith and Hawkins, even with their silly prices.

I like to shop furniture, accessories like lamps - but haven't much in the last few years. Emphasis on the last two.

Chef's/Kitchen shops are interesting to me, especially if they offer dinner and serve ware. I don't really need anything for my kitchen and I'm not the first in line to buy the latest gadget, but I still like to look.

Grocery stores/Farmers markets. We're so limited on places to buy food locally, I go nowhere without a cooler these days.

Nursery, Homegoods/Marshalls, and Trader Joe's.

I used to love going to what I called "junk stores" or better known as antique stores. Unfortunately I read an article about decluttering and tried to change habits of buying stuff.

Homegoods, Barnes & Nobel, HalfPrice Books.

All of them. I have been known to entertain myself anywhere, including a funeral.

Museum shops are great fun. I especially like the one at Neue Gallery in NYC. I know, I am pathetic ...

And the café is even better!

Home Depot, Lowe's, TJ Maxx, Home goods, nurseries. I can't find Cherokee Purple tomato plants locally this year, have to order a few online.

I’ve become more of a shopper like Elmer. In, find what I need, out. I still like to linger around the model kitchens, though, and I will linger in Ikea and walk the whole store. And that’s partly because the two Ikeas i can go to are rqther dar, so I make it count, and have lunch or a snack, too!

Zalco, The Neue is a wonderful museum and shop, I agree.

Bookwoman & China,

Maybe a good spot for a GW meet up.

I think of this place every time I make an Estee Lauder purchase :-)

The whole place, not just the food and shopping!

I love shopping at Homegoods and I also enjoy garden centers and even grocery stores.. Now that I have dogs I like Pet Smart too and BJs Warehouse.

Grocery shops and markets in countries where I don't speak the language and can't read the script. Working out what's in the various containers is fun as is buying foods which I have never seen before and possibly have no idea what it is. I also like hardware stores in the same kinds of places for the same kinds of reasons. I rarely buy souvenirs but I find you can get more interesting things in a hardware store than a tourist shop. Otherwise I enter shops on a basis of absolute necessity only.

Zalco and china, it's a date!

I'm in Elmer's camp, run in and out. My daughter loves to shop so she does all my shopping.

Nursery for me, too. I could spend hours in them...and quite often do. (Didn't ask, but "LEAST" favorite is Grocery Store..I hate, hate grocery shopping)

Nurseries are good, but I also find ethnic supermarkets interesting. In addition to Japanese, Chinese, and Korean markets, I found another one nearby that has things from Eastern Europe and and the Middle East. The produce aisle is particularly interesting there, and the prices are good.

When I was a teen and my mom I would leave my dad would ask if we were going shopping or buying. I think of that often when I am browsing around "shopping".

I am a sucker for antiques, both fine and not-so-fine, and I love to browse. Sadly, most of my favorites have closed.

I'm not a happy shopper either--and yes, clothes and shoes are the worst. But before the pandemic I occasionally enjoyed browsing antique and thrift shops, although my days of bringing "stuff" home are in the past. I also got mesmerized in stores selling art supplies or books.

Ah, plant nurseries! My son and DIL gave me a gift certificate to my favorite one for Mother's Day, and I had fun spending it. I noticed the prices were significantly higher than last year. No retail sector (nor consumer) has been spared.

Kath, I wonder if your tiny double petunias are Calibrachoa. I grew double pink ones a few years ago, and they were stunning.

My shopping habits and likes have changed so much the last few years. I used to enjoy going to flea markets and antique malls. But now, i know I’m not going to restore/repair/collect anything, and so many things I, ahem, already have from my own and my parents’ lives! So that’s a little depressing.

I used to like home shopping, but I’m not really updating these days.

I used to like stores like Home Goods, but now I find them overwhelming and a cacophony of colors (if I can mix my terms a little). Kind of like the first (only) time I went to Times Square: 2 minutes and I told DH we had to leave. I was lucky enough to find my new dishes at Home Goods a few years ago, they were in the front of the store; but, I know they won’t have them again, so if I want to replace that chipped dinner plate I have to go online.

I like hardware stores, but I’m not doing my own home tasks anymore.

I like stationery/office supply stores, but I already own all the pens.

Bookstores, I already own all the books. And i’m not reading as voraciously as I used to, and really need to pare down the current tower. Besides, my local public libraries have good and current collections.

I do still like kitchen and bath stores and displays. There’s some really cool stuff out there, it’s usually well-organized, and the displays give me ideas if I ever do my kitchen, which is looking less and less likely.

Nurseries have been such a help during the pandemic, haven't they? I even like browsing HD nursery. I also like Bed, Bath & Beyond and have a stash of 20% coupons in my car. My BBB also has a large selection of pharmacy-type items and makeup, and getting a discount on those is good. Trader Joes is in my neighborhood, so I go there often but also need to go to the regular market for other things.

The couple of BBB near me have gotten so, well, messy. They are starting to look like my Kohl’s. Like people rifle through things, then don’t neaten up after themselves, and staff don’t tidy up (even before the staff shortages).

Yikes, I’ve become a shopping curmudgeon! I don’t want to be!

I haven't been to IKEA in a few years. The closest one is in Baltimore. I'm like a lot of you...since the pandemic, my shopping habits have changed. No longer do I just browse TJ Maxx and Homegoods, and I never go to department stores. I have plenty of clothes, more than enough of decorative items and I get my books at the library. The only thing I have been buying is flowers. I need to unload, not collect more items and I even cut down on the flower buying this year.

Alisande, not sure. I kind of want to go back and get another for the backyard now. If I get up early enough I may do that.

I went clothes shopping in JCPenneys a couple weeks ago. What a mess. I only went in because I wanted a poke bowl from the mall and decided to look for foot cream in Bath and Body Works since I was there. All first four fitting rooms were closed off. The only one open was a mess. Everyone left their clothes all over the place and there wasn't a place to hang them outside the room like they usually have. I hope I never have to go back there again.

I do like this one store called Cowgirl's Attic in Lexington. It's where I got all my old used Obelisks from for about half of the cost of new ones. The woman is going out of business, though. I went with a friend about a month ago to get more obelisks/garden stuff and they were all sold out of that type of thing. Mostly old junk, old, cool looking doors and windows, etc...

I'm with Kathsgrdn - plant nurseries are my fav, but I have given them up for now due to our drought. I can't put any new plants in because I can't water them in.

Otherwise - my favorite stores are... on-line. I HATE going into stores, LOL.