Web Shopping: Bots and Beyond

From my spot in the checkout line, the whole idea of shopping as entertainment is as flawed as most dot-com business plans. Drive through traffic, jostle strangers, stare at a Colosseum-size array of goods at a superstore--all to buy a camera? It's not my idea of fun.

For me, shopping is a job, not an adventure. The same applies to shopping online. You have to research items, compare prices, select a seller, and find the safest way to pay. Add to this the nightmares that can attend online shopping: goods that don't arrive, crummy customer service, and the hacker bogeyman trying to co-opt your credit card. But none of these concerns prevent me or millions of others from buying on the Web. What's the attraction? Mostly, it's the 24/7 access and the ability to shop in your undershorts. Three-fourths of buyers say convenience is their main reason for shopping on the Web, according to Astrid Van Dorst, senior analyst with the Gartner Group. Fewer than half of them are motivated by getting a great price.

And while online shopping does require some work, a host of tools and services can make spending your money easier than ever. You knew they'd find a way to help you do that, didn't you?

Are You Being Served?

Among the services available to online buyers are product review sites that offer opinions from experts and consumers, shopping bots that provide price comparisons, and ratings sites that rank sellers based on consumer satisfaction.

To test these sites, I shopped for an array of business-related items--including a fax machine and a digital camera--and personal goodies, such as a Razor scooter (for my nephew, I swear), a fancy-shmancy electronic Lego MindStorm set, a copy of the book In the Heart of the Sea, and a fleece pullover. We also asked a real expert--a professional shopper--to try the sites using her own clients' wish lists (see the "Professional Shopper" section of this article).

But would I be able to trust the advice I received in cyberspace? Would these sites save me time? The answer is, not always. I spent 1 to 2 hours shopping for each item--reasonable, perhaps, for a costly fax machine, but impractical for the Lego set or the pullover. So if you don't mind spending hours on research, these tools can help you find products, spot deals, and dig up reputable sellers. But they aren't the best choice for every item. Research tools and bots, for instance, work best for electronic goods with clearly defined features that are easy to rate--such as the pixel resolution of a digital camera. Clothes and toys, however, come in many variations, and are tougher for price bots to compare meaningfully. Still, when you have a list of items to buy and don't have time to battle the hordes at the mall, online shopping can be a blessing.