Surprised by an unexpected gift and need to reciprocate in a hurry?
Don't fret. The stores and post offices may be closed, but you can still buy one more last-minute holiday gift -- and get it to that distant cousin in Detroit by New Year's Day. Just put that PC you just unwrapped to good use.One in four Internet users already makes purchases online, where you can find national department-store chains such as Macy's doing business side by side with catalog houses such as L.L. Bean, Web-only stores such as Amazon.com and CDnow and countless other specialty stores.
Some sites even offer free shipping of big-ticket items or purchases over a certain amount. Many sites don't charge sales tax, and Congress has imposed a three-year moratorium on new state and local Internet taxes.
But if you feel the need for speed, be careful. A recent study by Jupiter Communications, a new-media research firm, found that 42 percent of the top-ranked Web sites took longer than five days to respond to a customer's e-mail inquiry, never responded or weren't accessible by e-mail.
Poor service has not slowed the growth of e-commerce, though. Online sales nationwide leaped from $1.8 billion in 1997 to $5.8 billion in 1998 and are expected to reach $15.6 billion by 2000, according to Jupiter.
Concern about security of payment has always been more perception than reality, says Jupiter's Nicole Vanderbilt, senior analyst of digital commerce. Now it's even less of an issue because more sites are using secure servers. (Look for an unbroken key or locked-padlock icon at the bottom of the screen when you're completing the order form.)
"The Internet is probably the safest place to use your credit card," says Russ Bodoff of BBBOnLine, a subsidiary of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
More than 2,000 companies carry the BBBOnLine seal of approval for reliability and ethical business practices. And a second program is being launched to certify companies that pledge to protect the privacy of personal data.
Books and recorded music are among the most competitively priced goods on the Internet. But with more efficient "robot" shopping services operated through the major search engines, consumers can comparison-shop lots of items more easily online than at the mall.