Internet Shopping

There is something about Internet shopping that evokes a certain primitive fear in me. Most of my friends have started to shop on Internet years ago, but it took me until this last year to finally get started. I have a high-speed Internet connection, and in most senses I am a pretty Web savvy, high-tech kind of guy. Nevertheless, shopping on the Internet scares me. Think about it this way: if you walk into a store, you have every opportunity to see if something looks fishy. If the clerk looks dishonest, if there are people waiting around looking for your credit card number, or if the store seems to sell shabby wares, you can always back out before it is too late. At an Internet shop, however, you have no chance to do any of this. Basically, you have to just trust a total stranger, sight unseen. That is something that is hard for me to do.

Sooner or later though, it was bound to happen. I was finally drawn into Internet shopping by what draws everyone into Internet shopping: the convenience. Instead of ordering a book into my local bookstore, waiting several weeks and going to pick it up, I can order it for a cheaper price through Amazon. And if you are looking for hard to find or collectible items, Internet shops are the only way to go. There are more and more things nowadays that you can not get unless you use the Internet.

For example, one of my cousins just recently bought a highly coveted item in an Internet antique shop. It was a turn-of-the-century lamp, and it was absolutely gorgeous. He had been looking for it for years, and if it hadn't been for Internet shopping he might never have found it. The fact that he was able to browse the wares of many national and regional antique dealers made the Internet shopping more valuable than all the hours he spent looking through various antique shops. It gave him more shopping power than he would have normally had.

Nonetheless, I am still pretty conservative with my Internet shopping habits. Most of my friends will buy things just about anywhere, but I will only go to a few different stores. It still makes me too nervous to give out my credit card over the Internet, you see, and I would rather miss out on a few deals than compromise my financial future.