Shopping on the Net

    Internet shopping has been described as catalogue shopping par excellence. That's a load of rubbish, of course. You don't pay by the minute for browsing a catalogue. Nor do catalogues suddenly, inexplicably lock up as their pages are turned. There's no 'excellence' about it. Most Internet users, buyers and sellers (except the proselytising Wavey Davey types), acknowledge this.

    Late last year, for example, The Wall Street Journal carried out a survey of major retailers, and asked them why they weren't particularly interested in selling online. The Internet was too slow, said many. It wasn't secure enough, said others. Then The Journal rounded up 1,013 netsurfers and asked much the same. They weren't too concerned about the speed (or maybe they were just resigned to its sluggishness), but they did complain that online retailers weren't offering attractive enough discounts. They argued that the absence of a rateable brick-and-mortar shop meant that retailers didn't have the usual overheads, therefore their goods ought to be cheaper. And, most heinous crime of all, they said, most retail web sites were boring.