Christmas Shopping Online
In 1998 I bought almost all of my Christmas presents online. Retailers were offering free shipping and other incentives for those that were willing to buy online. It was a tremendous success. Everything arrived on time and I saved a bundle on taxes and shipping fees.
I was so happy with the results from 1998 that I decided to buy everything online for the 1999 Christmas season. 1999 wasn’t as successful. In one year thousands upon thousands of consumers learned about online shopping and decided to give it a try. The online retailers were not ready and orders got backed up. About a third of the gifts I ordered didn’t arrive on time. Even though there have been huge improvements since 1999 in online buying I still make sure to order everything early instead of trusting the last minute guaranteed shipping offers.
Online shopping is a norm now with retailers pulling in large portions of their annual revenue during the months of November and December. I bought about half of my Christmas gifts online this year. I ordered an iPod Shuffle from the Apple site and some CDs and books from Amazon. Online shopping has become sophisticated and much simpler than the early days of the popular Web and I expect it to get easier in the coming years as usability improves and becomes a must-have for all sites.
What are you buying online this year? Share your online buying experiences?