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Drive to The Store? Wait By The Mailbox for A Catalog?

Why bother? The Internet's World Web is the modern marketplace. You can sit down at your computer and quickly find what you want, when you want, Or so the cyberspace sales pitch goes.

Can this shopper's paradise be real? I decided to find out. My mission is simple (and enviable): Spend money. I draw up a list of life's basics, ranging from life-changing purchases to pocket-change niceties. My shopping list in includes a house, a car, a vacation, a computer, a compact disc, groceries, a bottle of wine, and a birthday gift.

Can you even buy such things online? Are they any less expensive? Is it any more convenient? Armed with Netscape Navigator browsing software on my PC, and hooked into the Web via the CompuServe network and a 14,400bps modem, I am going cyber-shopping.

I don't really expect to buy a house on the Web, but I'd like to find out what's for sale in Westchester County, just north of New York City. But my house-hunting quickly becomes a primer on the disorganization of the Web, which more resembles a crazy quilt than a carefully woven spider's web. There is no directory or table of contents, much less a real estate section.

So to find some houses, I have to rely on the kindness of strangers in the form of unofficial Web indexes and assorted other online sites that include point-and-links to related pages.

I start my search by typing in "house" on the Yahoo page, a popular web searcher. Yahoo finds 424 matches many of them having nothing to do with real estate but none lead me to Westchester listings.

But another index, the Whole Internet Catalog, leads me to something called the Internet Real Estate Directory. Merely by clicking on the directory's highlighted name, I'm transported to the right computer, the Web's routine minor miracle. The Real Estate Directory turns out to be a chatty, opinionated list of Web real estate listings none of which prove very useful.

Eventually, the Catalog's references lead me to three houses listed by a Coldwell-Banker agency in Chappaqua, New York, But the three "luxury properties" are a little too luxury for my wallet: The cheapest sells for $625.000.

Ready to give up, I find an online agency, the William B. May Company. The Web site describes 27 houses, many of which are in the Westchester towns of Irvington and Ardsley. A gold mine by online standards, but it took the two frustrating hours on the computer. The real estate section of the Sunday New York Times sitting beside me lists about 400 houses.

I'm not sure I want to purchase a car on the Web, either, but I'm more optimistic about my chances. I quickly find a car broker called Auto Connection that lets you fill out a form to order the new or used car you want: year, make, model, color, and so on. The company then sends you a sales contract with a nearby dealer. But, as in real life, I want to do the legwork myself.

Another search on the Yahoo page yields lots of irrelevant sites and one bull's-eye called DealerNet. It's kind of clearinghouse for manufacturer-supplied information about nearly any new car you could want to buy from Acura to Volvo. I'm interested in a Toyota. Dealer Net has electronic brochures for all of the 1995 Toyota models. No sales, but solid info.

Used cars are trickier. Several businesses offer listings, but their inventories are thin and their locations are geographically wide. I do spot an intriguing listing for a $9,900 1982 DeLorean, but before I can give in to that temptation, I spy a site dubbed The Webfoot's Used Car Lot. The "lot", run by a woman who also posts essays, such as "What I Learned from Shaving My Head", on the page for no apparent reason, features 55 cars for sale in the northeastern United States. No suitable Toyota here, either, but a prime example of the earthy volunteerism and unearthly strangeness that makes the Web such an interesting place.

The money's beginning to burn a hole in my electronic pocket, so it's on to buy something I'm pretty sure I can find online: a sweater. As I hunt for the right size, the challenge isn't simply finding what I want it's knowing exactly what I've found, At a site for Shetland Knitwear Associates in Scotland, I'm interested in what appears to be a sky-blue Fair Isle Trim Sweater (39.75, pounds sterling) pictured in their online catalog. But the caption beneath the photo reads "lovat green".  Which is right? Their caption or my computer?

Confused, I move along to an online shop run by a company called Winona Inc. Its sweaters feature preppie duck designs, and you can get a good look: The Web page displays small color photos of the sweaters, and clicking on one brings a larger photo that lets you see the knit as well as the color. I'm not in the mood for mallards, but encouraged to shop onward.

Finally, I settle on a zippered turtleneck from the online version of the REI catalog. Here, too, the colors aren't entirely clear, but I'm ready to order any way. It costs $69.90, including shipping and tax. Remarkably, though, I can't order it online. Instead, I have to dial REI's800number. Worse still, the woman who answers has no clue what this Web thing is. Eventually, we determine it's an item from their winter catalog her only frame of reference.

When the sweater arrives by UPS a week later, it's a brownish black, not the far lighter color it appeared on the screen. But I'll keep it. Which later proves just as well: REI disappeared from the Web in weeks following my shopping. Many of these Web sites seem to have the shelf life of bananas or grow like weeds. Lands End, the popular catalog clothier, has since opened its first Web site.

I'm a little more particular about my computer's specifications. At the Internet Shopping Network (an online subsidiary of the Home Shopping Network), I browse through a long list of notebook computers. One strikes my fancy; it reads: ACERNOTE760, 486DX2-50, 340MBHD,4MB,1.44-FD,D.SCAN. I know enough computerese to translate that into a Acer Note laptop with a 50 MHZ486 chip, a 340MB hard drive, 4MB of memory, a 1.44MB floppy disk drive, and a dual-scan color screen. But it still leaves me with lots of questions: How much does it weigh? How large is the screen? What software does it include?

There's no picture of the computer on its "information page", and no screen measurements. And the official weight listed is 13 pounds - obviously a mistake in this 5- to 7-pound era.

Eventually, I find another Acer Note notebook I like on the Network. This one has a 486DX4-75 processor, 8MB of memory, and, I thankfully note, a 9.5-inch color screen, It costs $1.972.46 before taxes and shipping. I deem it a pretty good deal, since Acer America itself is selling the same model with only 4MB of RAM for $1.999. I click on the Order button, which brings several screens asking me to confirm my intent to buy and then presents an itemized bill. I had earlier supplied my credit card information in becoming a "member" of the Internet Shopping Network. (Members can buy; others can merely browse.)

Later, I get two separate confirming e-mail messages as if I'd ordered two computers. That mistake rectified, another miscue becomes apparent when the computer arrives: It has only 4MB of memory. I send an urgent e-mail message to Internet Shopping Network. They respond in kind, admitting their description was too good to be true. Internet Shopping Network agrees to take back the system. The whole experience leaves me little gun-shy about buying big-ticket items online. I scratch the computer from my list and move on.

Even the most familiar brand names don't necessarily spell a rewarding shopping experience, as I discover shopping for music CDs. Entering the Web site for Tower Records, I'm expecting a wide selection and maybe some online salespeople. Using Tower's search form, I look for CDs by the jazz musician Sun Ra. In response, I get a garbled printout containing variations on this helpful little message: SCORE: 1000, LINES: 33, BYTES: 1435. Then, without warning, Tower's computer starts downloading a huge file I can't see what it is onto my computer. I soon lose my patience and curiosity, and hit the Stop button to cut it off. I try again, only to get the same digital dizziness.

Making my escape from this Tower of Babble, I wind up at a place called CD Land, which claims to have 137,000 recordings and indeed has 28 of Sun Ra's. I order one. A week later, the disc comes in the mail. It cost me $18.98, shipping included. Not a great deal, I later learn. The Tower Records store the on land kind that sits a mile and a half away from my home had the same disc for $17.30, tax included.

Well, if the Web isn't always the best deal, it's the fastest way to shop, isn't it? Not necessarily: As I learn when buying groceries online, ordering is one thing delivery is another. The only Web store I can find resembling a grocer is American Supply International, which caters mostly to Americans abroad hungering for homegrown staples like Froot Loops, Pringles, and Cheez Whiz. But ASI also delivers in the United States, so I order a $34 care package with all the essentials: Doritos, canned tuna, Raisin Bran, and assorted other yummies.

Don't order on an empty stomach. It took nine days for ASI to get my order out the door, and about a week more via parcel post to arrive at my doorstep. As you might suspect, ASI doesn't sell perishables. But my purchases seem to get easier, even pleasurable, as I go down my list. Indeed, my online wine merchant, Virtual Vineyards, is worthy of a B - school case study in how to conduct business over the Web at least in comparison to other Web sites.

The Virtual Vineyards site offers something few others do: guidance. It singles out monthly specials. It has sampler packs of Cabernets, Chardonnays, and medium-bodied reds. It has a special button to limit your search to wines under $15. And it has copious descriptions of each wine it carries far more helpful and believable than your usual liquor-store employee.

My curiosity is piqued by a Pinot Blanc from Domaine St. Gregory, so I investigate. I read a short review brimming with wine talk like "full malolactic fermentation".

I'm sold. I drop the wine into my virtual shopping basket and head to the check out page, a secure credit card order form. I try not to think about the shipping charge, which runs $7.89 for the $12 bottle of wine. Fedex delivers it two days later, in a box discreetly labeled "Virtual" but not "Vineyards".

Planning a vacation on the Web is a little more haphazard, but it can be done especially if you've got flexible plans. I've got Mickey on my mind, but nothing too specific beyond that. After cruising random destinations ranging from Hawaiian resorts to Scottish getaways, I end up at Travel-Web, a clearinghouse for hotel chains. Travel Web leads me to Disney World.

The Disney site has a calendar of events at its Florida theme parks and detailed descriptions of its hotels, including prices and a picture (with measurements) of a typical room. I pick Disney's All-Star Music Resort and fill out a form with my name and arrival/departure information. The next day, a clerk from Disney calls to review the details.

Renting a car from Alamo is a snap, once I find the company through Yahoo's index. Using Alamo's form, I enter the dates for my Orlando vacation and pick "Economy Car-Four Door". The Web page quotes me a price of $67.76 for four days. I accept, and the company's system spits out a confirmation number.

For tickets, I try a company called PC Travel, which I wander into through Yahoo. On the Web for less than a month when I check it out, PC Travel is not yet at full speed. For my Orlando trip, I request the lowest-priced tickets that are refundable without paying a penalty. A series of forms and confirmations lead me through my itinerary, giving me a selection of flights and carriers near the times I request. I order a pair of tickets online Wednesday night, priced at $366 apiece for the round trip. I get the tickets via Fedex on Friday. Everything's fine.

But then I notice that the words "Ticket Non Refundable" are printed on each of the coupons. Panicking, I call PC Travel. A helpful agent cancels the ticket and theorizes there's problem with the way PC Travel's computer codes New York Orlando flights. She'll fix the status.

My final purchase is a birthday gift for my wife. Ordinarily, I'd head to the mall, so I start wandering through the various Web malls looking for interesting stores. But these Web malls tend to group companies and products that are impossible to imagine together in a real-world mall. At the Web's iMall, for instance, you can buy stun guns and Brigham Young University T-shirts, but there's no Sears or J.C. Penney. At the Internet Shop Keeper, you can buy Tupperware and a condom-vending machine. Again, no department stores. At the Empire Mall, one store sells personalized mouse pads, while another sells jet-aircraft consulting.

Oddities abound. For the sake of marital peace, I resist the urge to buy her a mailbox in the shape of a dolphin, or one of the many food baskets with names like Carolina Swamp Stuff and Chile Today/Hot Tamale. And there's enough gourmet coffee on the Web to keep you up at night: Maui Coffee Company, Harvard Espresso, and Java. Byte are but a few of the Joe choices.

Not making any progress, I switch gears. No doubt my toddler would like an early birthday surprise from one of the toy stores I've spied in my online travels. A few minutes browsing in the Grand River Toy Company's Web catalog and I find just the thing for my beloved little noisemaker: four jingling bells attached to a Velcro band that he can wear on his wrist or ankle.

The bells arrive a few days later. I shake the bells for him; he doesn't seem interested. I strap them around one wrist; he fights to pull them off. Why should I be surprised? It's not the first time the bells and whistles of World Wide Web shopping have disappointed me.

How Safe is Buying Online?

IF YOU thought you'd be mugged in the parking lot of your local mall you probably wouldn't rush out to go shopping. Shopping on the Internet doesn't pose any physical hazards, but the security and privacy of electronic transactions is still an open question.

One antitheft measure, called the Secure Sockets. Layer or SSL protocol, is already integrated into the popular Netscape Navigator browsing software from Netscape Communications. Using encryption techniques, SSL attempts to create a secure conduit between computers so no one can take a look at the information in transit which would include your credit card number and expiration date. SSL has not proven impenetrable however, and there are a number of other proposed solutions.

One, called Secure HTTP or S-HTTP, addresses not only privacy, but also issues such as "authentication" (verifying that each party in a sale is who they claim to be). Several key figures in the online arena - including Netscape, CompuServe America Online, and IBM (a co-owner of prodigy) are trying to shape SSL and A-HTTP into a single security standard.

But, at this writing, visa and MasterCard are pursuing their own routes to secure online transactions. And Verifone, the credit-car authorization company used by most retailers, has an online system of its own. In the near term, the result of these many efforts will likely be continued uncertainty about buying online.

- L. E

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