Shopping Season

Computer Life column for December 5, 1998
by
Richard Gordon

Twas the month before Christmas, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring-except for my mouse.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't know that Shopping On Line is the trendy way to avoid lines at the mall?

A friend of mine stopped by my office to gloat about avoiding the lines at one toy store. "The day after Thanksgiving, the line was literally out of the store," she said. Her plan? She'd done some in-person shopping the day before Thanksgiving, hit a couple of on-line stores last weekend, and was beginning to get boxes of merchandise by the middle of this past week.

This holiday season, some retailers are predicting 20-300% jumps in their on-line business. It certainly feels much more convenient to either browse through the ever-growing stack of catalogs or to go upstairs and log in to shop after the kids are asleep. And ordering on line has the advantage that it enables more companies to accept orders 24 hours a day.

I admit that for years, companies like Elderly Instruments-my favorite catalog store in the world (www.elderly.com)-has allowed customers to order musical instruments, supplies, accessories, books, CDs and tapes using voice mail whenever the store is closed.

But it's much more reliable to send the order in electronically. The customer can type or select the information so that the order is exactly right. Plus, if the merchant sets things up properly, before you place an order, you can be told what items are in stock and which ones are not. And the merchant doesn't have to have to pay to person the phone lines between, say, 10:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m.

Of course, not everyone has a computer, and browsing with a modem connection can still be painfully slow at some commercial web sites. For some of us, it will be a decision between experiencing the World Wide Wait at home or standing in line for 55 minutes at some of the malls.

If you are still deciding what to buy, there is nothing that beats wandering into Mitchell's and browsing in person through all those orange Lionel boxes. But if you know exactly which electric train cars you want to get your 4th grader or your grandfather, shopping on line can be a tremendous time-saver.

But there's a scrooge in every crowd.

This week, President Clinton has announced his desire to spend federal moneys on programs to train consumers about the potential for fraud on the Net and on Justice Department research to ascertain whether our current laws offer enough protection against potential problems raised by electronic commerce.

Actually, that would be money well-spent.

If you do have concerns about a merchant, visit the Better Business Bureau on line (www.bbb.com).

Tip of the week

Holiday Letters

A holiday letter can be a vehicle for letting friends catch up with your family. However, those generic, photocopied letters you insert in holiday greeting cards often come across as boring, impersonal missives.

With just a little more effort, you could personalize each letter, not just changing the salutation from "Dear Friends," to "Dear John and Marsha," but also inserting and deleting things based on what you think John and Marsha would really like to learn.

Most word processors have a feature that lets you combine two files-the main text of your letter and a separate file containing the parts that will differ from letter to letter. For example, in Microsoft Word, look for the "Mail/Merge" feature on the pull-down Tools menu.

When you combine the two files, most word processors create one large file containing a copy of each customized letter. Before you send that big file to the printer, you could even spend a few minutes going through and adding individual postscripts to some of the letters.

Invest the extra time, and your friends will feel you cared enough to send them a real letter.

Copyright © 1998, The News Journal Company

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