Perhaps, I thought, there was more to shopping than collecting squashy parcels from forecourt lockers. I soon got my answer

I love clothes; I loathe clothes shops. Like many of my contemporaries, I have embraced the world of online secondhand shopping. And yet, I also want to live in a place where people walk, shop, gather and eat in their city centre. I want the high street to remain as healthy and as unhomogenised as possible. I know that online shopping is killing off traditional shopping areas and apparently, even online shoppers buying new are having a fairly miserable time; so-called serial returners will buy – and then post back – £6.6bn worth of unwanted online purchases this year. More than a fifth of non-food purchases made online in the UK are now returned to the retailer, and there’s usually a spike in returns around Christmas.

And so, with my debit card weighing lightly in my pocket, I decided to head into town and have a go at some bricks-and-mortar shopping. I would stand in those changing rooms, smell those diffusers and, this being half term, queue up behind some hormonal teenagers dressed as Gwen Stefani 25 years ago.

Nell Frizzell is a journalist and author