Back in the early days of the web, there were a few well-publicized efforts to see if it was possible to live solely through an online connection. Proving much easier than anticipated, shopping online’s only gotten bigger and better since.

Some online marketing experiments have failed or changed since then. You can no longer bid on groceries at priceline.com, though you can still book flights, hotels, and rental cars cheaply there. And once-commercial pets.com has since become an informational portal.

But despite the “dot-com bust” of several years ago, online commerce is more vigorous and varied than ever. In 2006, e-commerce provided over 22% of the total shipments of US goods, up almost 6% from the year before. This while only about 3% of all retail sales were online, indicating a lot of wholesale business gets done over the Internet, too.

For consumers, shopping online can be extremely convenient. Stores are open all the time with huge selections and low prices. Goods can be easily located, prices compared, manuals downloaded, product information reviewed, and items purchased easily and quickly, including shipping. And all this can be done while you’re still in your bathrobe at home.

There is a downside too. There’s no opportunity to directly interact with the product, no sensual gratification. There’s little personal interaction with the merchant. And despite the instant thrill of purchase, there is an inevitable wait for delivery, and shipping can sometimes eliminate any savings. Returning goods through the mail can be a hassle as well.

Even so, online shopping is here to stay. So this issue will cover some of the newest trends, a few alternatives you might not have heard of, and some of the concerns you should have.

What sells online

The products that first adopted easily to online sales were those with sense appeal limited to sight or sound. So DVDs and music were early hits. But the success of huge online booksellers including amazon.com and powells.com was largely due to enhancing the commercial experience. They’ve worked hard to make bookbuying from them more rewarding than wandering into a bricks and mortar store. Customer reviews, sample chapters, and recommendations give more useful information to make a purchase. From this, Amazon in particular has vastly expanded its product range from books to electronics, clothes, toys, tools, pet supplies, even groceries.

Comparing prices is simple on the Internet. You can do it on your own by opening multiple browser tabs for various sellers, or go to sites that can do it for you. Some of these are much like big commercial chain stores like buy.com, others such as cnet.com, which specializes in electronics, aggregate the prices from several sources and in any price range.

The Internet combines the ability to market on the broadest scale while allowing individual customization of the finest details. Giant websites such as Amazon also include many small specialized “mom and pop” bookstores as well, which take advantage of their host’s recommendation, payment and shipping schemes. There are vast emporiums, like ebay.com, the online auction house, where one can bid on virtually anything that’s sellable. But this combination of wide marketing and individualization also allows people to design and sell their own unique goods. They first began with do-it-yourself book publishing enterprises like lulu.com. At cafepress.com, one can design and sell art on coffee cups, hats and T-shirts while at etsy.com, you can buy and sell handmade arts and crafts.

And there are a number of products which do quite well online that one would never expect due to their intimate nature, such as eyeglasses and shoes, for instance.

Trying on glasses in person is compensated for by incredibly low prices at sites like goggles4you.com where one can buy several styles for the price of one pair at a mall. And at zappos.com, which highlights shoes but also sells a wide range of apparel, the selection and reviews help, but it is the excellent customer service that is the main selling point.

Customization now even allows you to purchase paintings made from your photographs. These range from fairly simple Photoshop renderings to real oil paintings. Or if you want to make them into jigsaw puzzles, you can buy a program to do so at brainsbreaker.com. And of course, you can buy actual oil reproductions of classic artwork like the Mona Lisa to hang over your mantlepiece or order original artwork from the thousands of talented artists online.

Buyer be aware

To get the most out of such opportunities, one must know much more than just one’s credit card number. Since anything worn depends on personal measurements, you need to know your dimensions beforehand – whether feet size or the distance between your pupils. Without a clerk to help or advise, this could pose a problem, especially in judgement calls. How would that dress that looks good on the model in the picture work with your skin and body type?

The recommendations served up when searching are maybe helpful or maybe not. Most are based on your search results. Sometimes they pick what other people looking for the same thing have also bought. However, more and more it’s based on your surfing history. Called “behavioral targeting,” it has already given rise to serious privacy concerns.

When shopping online, just as shopping anywhere, one needs to be aware of certain things to stay safe. You need to have confidence that the merchant you are dealing with is not going to rip you off, that any problems you have with your purchase can be resolved quickly and easily. So you may want to examine the site’s return policy before committing or check around to see if there have been any complaints. Some sites with numerous sellers, like eBay, have excellent ratings systems that the merchants take very seriously. Price comparison sites also sometimes indicate satisfaction levels.

Before paying, look to make certain the site is legitimate and secure. When typing in your credit card number always ascertain that it’s an encrypted site (the web address should begin with https:, not just http: ). Look for the closed lock icon in the bottom corner of your browser pane to indicate this.

Most fake websites pretend to be banks, but merchants have been known to be spoofed, too. Page redirection is also a possibility. If a web site doesn’t feel right to you, prices are too good, you’re never heard of them before, or the address looks like http://192.168.10.7/gotcha.exe, trust your instincts and leave ASAP.

Even legitimate merchants get hacked, however. Unless you plan on buying regularly from an online merchant, it’s a good idea to opt out of leaving your card number in their database, if you can. You’ll want to keep an eye on your credit card and bank statements anyway, just to be sure.

from SWCP Portal, September 2008