There may be plenty of opportunities to shop in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but due to one frustrating aspect of the game, buying anything becomes a pain. With limits on how much players can order and restrictions on ordering in bulk, players have to be extra patient when dealing with the Nook catalog.
Players have to unlock the different shops and services at the beginning of the game. After the construction of Nook’s Cranny, the player will be approached by Mabel who will ask them to pick the spot for her permanent clothing shop. Afterward, players can unlock the Kicks shoe shop, owned by a shoe-selling skunk who comes to players’ towns every once and a while.
It’s easy enough to purchase a furniture or clothing item when the player sees it in-store. But for anything else Animal Crossing: New Horizons players can’t buy on-demand, they have to go through Nook’s catalog, with some restrictions. And that’s where the frustrating aspect of Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ shopping comes in.
Why Ordering From Nook’s Catalog Is So Difficult In New Horizons
Nook’s catalog has been a feature in all of the Animal Crossing games, and for the most part, it’s always functioned the same, meaning it keeps repeating the same flaws over and over again. One of the catalog's most frustrating aspects is that it only allows players to view items they have bought or received, so unless a player has owned it at one point in the game, they’ll be otherwise unable to order the item. Certain items, like rare or exclusive gifts, can’t be bought from the catalog at all. What’s more annoying, however, is that even though players can’t order these sorts of items, they can still view them in the catalog, which appears to have no advantage whatsoever.
One of the biggest issues with Nook's catalog is that there are limits on how much players can order at a given time and on a certain day. Tom Nook only allows players to order five items per day, so Animal Crossing: New Horizons users will have to be patient if they are hoping to purchase more than the allotted amount. Even more frustrating, however, is that players can only order items one at a time. They have to go through the entire checkout process in order to select one item and then do it over again if they want to order something different. The catalog gives no options to buy in bulk or buy multiple items at one time. Players then have to wait until the very next day to receive their products in the mail, which comes anywhere between 9 AM to 5 PM.
The catalog has worked this way in countless Animal Crossing games, even in ones as old as Wild World. But this makes it surprising as to why the developers have not chosen to improve the catalog to make it more user friendly. Letting players order items in bulk, and letting them purchase as much as they want on any given day, would go a long way towards making this process more enjoyable. As it is now, the catalog in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is frustrating to use, leading players to have a poor shopping experience.