Welcome Guests

Why shop online?

You should shop on the Internet when:

• You know exactly what you want, and you want to get it over with -- with a minimum of hassle and time. You don't want to spend an hour or more driving to a physical store and going through the usual routine there; and, if the item is out of stock at the first store you go to, you don't want to have to trek to another and another, or wait weeks for delivery.

• You know what kind of thing you want to buy, but not specifically which one -- which book or CD or video. Also, you don't want to waste your money buying something you won't like and waste your time figuring out that you made a mistake.

• You know what you want to buy, but it's rare -- very few stores would ever carry such a thing.

• You need to buy something that is very expensive (a car or a house). You have to comparison shop because you aren't fabulously wealthy. But you'd like to do it as quickly and effectively as possible.

• You're curious. You don't have time to indulge your curiosity in the physical world where it takes so long and costs so much to go from one place to another. On the Internet you can go from one side of the world to another with just a click of your mouse.

• You want to buy something, but don't want to be seen buying it. Perhaps it's a gift that you want to keep secret before you give it, and being seen going into the store by family or friends would blow the surprise. Or perhaps it's something you'd be embarrassed to buy in person -- cosmetics you don't want people to know that you use, or sex-related products.

• You are a bargain hunter by nature. You get a charge out of buying things at lower prices than your friends and neighbors. Saving money is nice, but not nearly as good as flexing your smart-buyer muscles.

• You can't get to the store for any reason, such as illness or taking care of a sick kid or age or bad weather or lack of transportation or lack of time or alien abduction. (Reportedly, most UFOs have Internet connections).

Online Shopping Basics

The Internet is revolutionizing how we do our shopping. Thousands of companies, large and small, are racing to set up online stores. Companies that have retail outlets just down the street from where you live now offer specials and coupons online. Manufacturers that used to sell just to stores, now sell directly to you online. Brand-new online-only companies operate with no physical storefronts and little or no inventory and pass much of the savings on to you. And stores all over the world are just a click away. This new way of shopping provides you with and enormous choice of products, as well as a vast variety of detailed information to help you make the right decisions about everything from books to cars, from clothes to real estate--even money.

Also, thanks to the heated competition for your business, the situation keeps improving to your benefit. Selling online is a new experience for these companies, just as shopping online is for you. Most online stores are still learning how to attract visitors to their Web sites and how to turn the visitors into buyers. They are trying every imaginable innovation to get your attention, win your trust, earn your loyalty, and get your sales dollars. What one store sells for profit, another may sell for less than cost or even give away as an incentive for you to "join" or to buy something else. Once you learn your way around the online shopping world, you should be able to quickly find the products you want--even rare ones--and at prices that you'd probably never see in the physical world. In the process you may also find yourself engaging in and enjoying activities you never considered before--like chat, auctions, and online trading--and making friends with other shoppers who have common interests.

As you take these first steps, expect change. In addition to describing today's shopping sites, this book will provide tips and general principles to help you find newly opened stores and services, and as well as finding alternatives to some stores mentioned here that may have gone out of business by the time you read this--victims of the fierce competition.

The surviving Internet businesses will probably look different than the screen shots captured here, and they will no doubt have changed their prices and terms of sale. On the Internet, you can change your store with a few computer keystrokes--reorganizing everything, re-pricing everything, adding new and improved features. The flexibility on the Internet means that online stores can rapidly and easily respond to customer complaints and requests, continually refining and improving their Web sites. To benefit, you should be flexible as well, continually learning from your online experience.

Directories and search engines--when to use what

www.google.com , www.northernlight.com , www.hotbot.com , www.lycos.com , www.excite.com , www.infoseek.com , www.samizdat.com/search.html

At the large Web sites that call themselves "portals," you will probably have a choice of searching or browsing through the content of their site and/or of the Web at large. You search when you know exactly or fairly close to what you want. You enter the appropriate word or words in the syntax required by that search engine and ideally you go to a hyperlinked list of pages that probably contain the information you want. If you don't find what you want on the first try, that's either because the information isn't available, or because you need to improve your "query"--that is make your search terms more precise and make sure you are using proper syntax. Syntax is the structure for the query that this particular search engine requires, for instance the use of punctuation. (There are no standards. They all do it their own way.)

When you are uncertain--maybe you know the category, but are looking for suggestions or ideas, you should browse or surf through directory listings. In this case you look at organized lists of choices, perhaps with descriptions attached and probably with hyperlinks to more detailed choices. This is like walking into a book or music store, going to you favorite section, and scanning the shelves to see what's new and what might catch your interest.

Most people favor one style more than the other--it's a matter of personality. Beginners strongly favor directories, because they feel familiar--like yellow pages listings. Sometimes you think in categories and sometimes in specifics. If I want to find a college in Southern California, I'll go through a directory, checking under colleges, then US, then California, then Southern California, scan the list and pick the ones I want to check out. If I want to find driver software for my BJ200 Canon printer so I can run it with the new operating system I just installed on my computer, I'll use a search engine and go straight to the Web page I want. Everybody will probably use both these modes of operation at one time or another.

With a directory, you depend on the judgement and hard work of others to sort out what information is important and how pieces of information relate to one another. Using such a service exclusively would be like having someone else arrange your house, categorize your email into folders, arrange your books, organize your CD collection or your videotapes. Most people prefer to define "order" based on how their own mind works and makes associations, rather than on the tastes of someone else. At first someone else's order might seem convenient, but as you become more familiar with the Internet and what's really possible, these structures begin to get in your way.

With a search engine, if you go through the trouble of learning the commands, you can pluck whatever you want from the massive disorder of the Internet whenever you want, and quickly. And you aren't limited by the decisions of others. The search engines send out robots on expeditions of exploration and discovery, so you don't have to. But they don't make judgements of relevance or worth--that's your role; and that way the one item that is most important to you doesn't get filtered out before you learn that it exists.

Becoming a Creative Online Shopper

you are now ready to join the community of Internet online shoppers. Once you become part of this special group of people, then you'll begin to realize the true benefits of the Internet. By sharing openly, you gain access to the wisdom, experience, insights, and fellowship of tens of thousands of other online shoppers who have interests similar to yours.

Just tens of thousands of people? Not millions? Only a small percentage of those who shop online actively participate in the online community. Most online shoppers just pass through their shopping experience, buying one thing here and another there. But I hope that you'll aspire to more than that, wanting to achieve the truly active effortlessness that comes when you make online shopping an integral part of your life and identity. You'll live it, you'll breathe it, you'll love it. What the heck, it's fun.

What do we mean by the online shopping community? The Internet offers a variety of ways by which you can and should interact with other shoppers, and not just with shopping carts and credit-card transaction processing programs. Here is a brief summary:

• Chat is "real time" dialogue that occurs on the Internet between several people who are online simultaneously in the same chat area. In that chat area, you will be able to see what other participants type and they see what you type--live--as it's happening in real time.
• Forums are like bulletin boards. You post a message. Somebody comes by later and posts a response. Somebody else responds to that response. Over the course of days, weeks, months, years, threads of discussion grow.
• With email distribution lists, you "subscribe" to receive and send email messages in a given subject area. These email distribution lists are sent by and to other online participants who also subscribe.
• With newsgroups (also known as "Usenet newsgroups"), you can post and read messages in a given subject area without having "subscribed," simply by going to the right place within the newsgroup to read.

What it means to be a "full player"

A Word of Caution Before You Dive In

As you meet new people in newsgroups, forums, and chat sessions, you can benefit from their advice and suggestions, and you can help others as well. Just remember that people are people even in cyberspace: with all their good and bad traits. You should proceed with caution, listening more often than talking, until you've had enough online experience to develop cyber-street- smarts.

You have learned to proceed cautiously when approached by a street hawker or a door-to-door salesperson or when you get an unsolicited phone call from a stranger. You need to get used to the Internet equivalent of these encounters, to sense when you should hold back and when you should be open and sharing. 

Chat in a Hat--for Immediacy

In most cases, you first will arrive at a registration page, where you apply for a password, or you can just sign in, then click to enter and immediately join in the discussion. Sometimes your browser software will suffice for you to participate in the chat room's activity. Other times, you will be given instructions on how to download special chat software. Unfortunately, there are dozens of different chat programs, and different sites use different ones. Don't sweat it. Follow the instructions you find at each chat room. Just dive in--read and react. It won't take long for you to get the drift of how it works, and when you come to the same chat room for the second time, it will be even easier to join in.

In most cases, you type your messages in a form, and in a viewing area you see what you and others have been saying. You'll also see hyperlink buttons to click on to submit what you've typed or to change the look-and-feel of the page for your convenience. If you are confused, check the chat room's Help files. Better yet, speak up. Type what you are thinking. Ask your questions and let the folks like you who are connected help you. Once you start participating in the chat, just go with the flow of activities. You'll be surprised how soon this seemingly stilted and awkward communication mechanism becomes second nature to you. You'll almost start "hearing" it. (Imagine telegraph operators in the days when Edison was young, who heard words when the uninitiated just heard clicks.)

This medium is great when you need suggestions for a gift, or advice on what is the best of this or that, or tips on the best place to get what you need. When you have a question and need an immediate answer, or just need to vent to and relate with people in the same kind of circumstances, give chat rooms a try.

Forums--for Thoughtful Reasoned Dialogue