See Internet for bargains and selection
by Rodolpho Carrasco
Saturday, November 28, 1998 in San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group 1998
(Rodolpho Carrasco is associate director of Harambee Christian Family Center in Pasadena, Calif. and a columnist for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Check out more articles by Rodolpho Carrasco here.)
A CNN Interactive report that Americans will spend up to $3 billion purchasing Christmas gifts over the Internet signals the Net's coming of age. While this amount is only a fraction of the estimated $170 billion Americans will spend this holiday season, it is triple the amount we spent online last year. The rise in online sales, says Kate Delhagen of Forrester Research, shows that buying online is no longer the exception.
News like this makes me feel good. Some love Christmas shopping, but I rather clean and cook tripas in an unventilated kitchen than get stuck in a long line at the mall. Knowing that millions of Americans are out there with me, commanding encrypted numbers down the digital pipeline, makes me feel less crazy for wanting to do all my shopping from home.
It was just two years ago that the Net was the last place you would entrust something. We were promised the world and enough side income ("make money NOW on the web!") to quit our real jobs, and let down on both counts. The much-touted America Online was busy when you tried to dial in, harbored scammers who stole your password, and had an 800 number no one ever answered.
But today - except for the eternal lie about making money on the web - these things have changed. Many folks using email correspond with at least one person in another country. America Online tracks down frauds with a vengeance, someone always answers their 800 number, their stock is a poster child for the Dow Jones Index, and just this week AOL stood up to Microsoft and bought Netscape.
The credit card situation has also been resolved. If you have a "secure connection" you can send your credit card number in a scrambled format. For a hacker to steal your transmission, then crack the scrambled code, requires enormous computing resources and personal commitment. If you still don't feel safe, use logic. Mark Van Name and Bill Catchings of PC Week say, "Let's get real. Every waiter to whom you hand your card has the same opportunity (to steal your number), as does every store clerk or phone-order operator."
All these developments add up to one powerful fact: The web is a viable option for your Christmas shopping.
Still, most will prefer the bustle of shopping in the marketplace, the excitement of leaving home for a few hours and returning with a carful of secret gifts. I say, go for it. Be happy. Because I'm also going to be happy, sitting in my favorite chair, hot cup of coffee in hand, Led Zeppelin and U2 cds rotating on the stereo, shopping - online. Here are some things I'm shopping for:
Jesse Ventura stuff: Last week a married couple from Minnesota showed me their "My Governor Can Beat Up Your Governor" shirts. I tried trading an L.A. Galaxy t-shirt in exchange, but they looked at me like I had a contagious disease. Fortunately, these shirts are available for $16 apiece at pseconds.com/guv.
Books: Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com are the real deal. I bought a book at Vroman's in Pasadena the other day, checked for it online that night, and discovered I'd overspent by $6.
Gap Clothes: The Indigo denim shirts that I regularly wear out are on sale for $20, down from $34, at The Gap Online store. Gap.com is a place to buy for the whole family, as every page links to Gap Kids and Baby Gap. Other clothiers with impressive online stores include jcrew.com and landsend.com.
Cheap Airfares: How about a round-trip from Los Angeles to London for $279? This deal and others are available at BestFares.com.
Donations: At the American Red Cross (redcross.org) and World Vision (wvus.org) you can make a donation toward relief efforts in Central America, Kosovo, Sudan, North Korea and elsewhere.
Nike Brazil: That commercial of Brazil's World Cup soccer team killing time while waiting for a plane nearly got me and my youth group arrested in the Tijuana airport. It's also the reason one of those kids is starting for Pasadena High's soccer team. I want to give him that clip, so I went and found it at Nike.com and downloaded it. But there's a problem: How do I give it to him? The file is 4 megabytes and won't fit on a floppy disk.
Wireless: I was at a meeting in Colorado last week when a guy from Texas called Chicago in the middle of the business day. The three-minute call cost him 48 cents. It's called AT&T wireless, it's coming to the L.A. area in January (goodby L.A. Cellular), and you can order now at att.com.
These are only a few of many options for great online shopping. In the future there will be even more. This week's blockbuster AOL-Netscape deal was all about electronic commerce, specifically about taking the future of electronic commerce out of Bill Gates' hands. But whether the intracacies of that deal matter to you or not, keep in mind that sooner or later you will do significant pieces of your shopping online. Why not taking advantage of this exciting yet safe time to test the waters?
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