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Do you shop faster onthe Net? Considering the holiday shopping rush, the answer may be no. Take for instance, Fred Simkins' case.
Simpkins logged on to the Internet on his home computer at 6 a.m. one day late last week with visions of a speedy shopping trip. Cyber-shopping, he thought, would allow him to avoid cash-register lines and mall traffic jams, writes The Washington Post.
No such luck. On his computer, the toy store FAO Schwarz's busy Web site froze and wouldn't let him enter. When he called the retailer's outlet in Towson, Maryland, he was put on hold until his call was disconnected. And no matter where he went, he couldn't find the popular Lego MindStorms, which is what the Baltimore stockbroker badly wants to give his 9-year-old son, Crawford, for Christmas.
So is the Internet much different ``than driving to a mall and getting stuck in a parking lot?'' Take a deep breath, procrastinators. No matter whether you shop from a desktop computer, by catalogue or at the mall this week, you'llfind legions of people with the same thing on their minds. The last-minute crunch has been compounded this year by one fewer shopping weekend in December, along with warm weather early this month that had more people biking than shopping.
Late-in-the-game buying at World Wide Web stores isn't a panacea: Sites are crowded, shipping fees are skyrocketing, and many retailers new to the Internet are trying to work out kinks.
On top of that, people late to the shopping party can buy Christmas gifts on the eve of the holiday at stores but rarely online, because it can take at least a few days for merchandise to arrive. Yet some Internet companies are finding a way to compensate. America Online Inc., the Dulles Internet giant, has opened a special spot for procrastinators. (AOL customers can use the keyword `Last Minute Gifts'; others can access the area through the Web site AOL.com.) The company lists 500 gift items, including watches and fragrances, from 15 merchants. Purchases are guaranteed to arrive 24 to48 hours after the order is logged. And there are similar shopping outlets, such as 911gifts.com.
High shipping costs, however, go with last-minute decision-making. Apparel retailer J Crew, for example, allows customers to order as late as noon December 24 and it will arrange for Christmas Day delivery through the US Postal Service, a J Crew sales associate said. But customers balk at the price: A $51 sweater would cost $34 to ship. Catalogue shopping remains popular, but at this late date, consumers trying to get a human order-taker are instead likely to get a big dose of Christmas-inspired on-hold music.
And like online retailers, cataloguers need at least a few days to ship products. Some consumers who had hoped to join this year's online onslaught realised they had waited too long. Janice Emert, an office assistant for a Falls Church computer firm, said she would rather shop on the Internet but decided to head for the malls so she can have her gifts in hand instead of peeking out her window every fewminutes on Christmas Eve to see if the delivery truck had arrived.
Already she can see the signs that the electronic streets leading to retailers' Web sites are beginning to fill with shoppers. Last week she was looking for a pager for herself, and several electronics retailers' site slowed to a crawl. ``It's like waiting in line,'' Emert said. That's just what Kelley Parks was doing Thursday night at the Hecht's store at Tysons Corner Center. She grabbed a number from a bakery-style ticket dispenser, and when No. 98 popped up onto the screen, breathed a sigh of relief. She had finished her holiday shopping.
``That's me,'' said Parks, a 32-year-old bookkeeper from Herndon, as she scurried to the counter to buy a bracelet for her babysitter. Outside the department stores, slumped on a bench, Joyce Purvis and Ray Carman were regrouping. Just a few minutes earlier, the Sterling couple had finally finished their excruciating wait at a cash register shared by three busy sales associates.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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