Bricks and mortar? Or click and order?
That’s the question facing a growing number of shoppers this holiday season. They have a choice between braving weather, traffic and crowds to shop in a mall or store, or doing their gift buying through cyberspace from the comfort of home.
The latter option sounds mighty appealing, but on-line shopping isn’t without perils. With that in mind, the Washington, D.C.-based National Consumers League recently conducted a survey regarding problems shoppers experience when purchasing items from e-commerce sites.
“We found 44 percent of people with Internet access had bought something on-line in the last year,” said Susan Grant, director of the NCL’s Internet Fraud Watch Program. “In most cases, those were happy experiences, but troubles can arise, ranging from problems with returns to outright fraud.
“One in five (survey respondents) said they’d had a problem, and the two most common problems were that they paid for something and didn’t get it, or paid for something and got something quite different than what was promised.”
However, the survey somewhat allayed concerns that it’s common for credit card numbers to be stolen on-line, which many consumers cite as their No. 1 fear about on-line shopping. Only three percent said they’d been charged for something they’d never agreed to buy, said Grant.
To help holiday shoppers avoid such headaches, organizations such as the NCL, the American Bar Association (ABA) and Consumers Union, the Yonkers, N.Y.-based non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, have posted guidelines for on-line shopping on their Web sites. Following these recommendations for safe and efficient on-line purchasing can help improve the chances your holiday shopping season will be jolly.
– Be organized. Gail Hillebrand, San Francisco-based senior attorney for the West Coast regional office of Consumers Union, urges holiday shoppers to begin by making a list of items they want to shop for on-line. “It helps you spend less, because it helps you keep track of what you’ve already bought,” she reported.
– Start small. If you’re new to on-line shopping, it’s best to choose the leading e-commerce sites and begin with smaller purchases, said Walter Effross, professor of law at Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., chairman of the ABA’s subcommittee on electronic commerce and principal drafter of the ABA Web site on safe on-line shopping.
“Order one or two inexpensive items, just to get your feet wet and see how it works,” he said. “Get comfortable.”
– Check out the seller. Say you’re already comfortable with on-line shopping, but want to buy a gift from the e-commerce site of a company or individual unfamiliar to you. Due diligence is still advised, no matter how savvy an Internet shopper you are, Grant noted.
“Checking with the Better Business Bureau, with your local or state consumer protection agency or with a feedback forum on a Web site are all helpful things to do, especially if it’s a sizable purchase,” she said.
– Comparison shop. It’s often easier to compare prices and features in cyberspace than it is at a mall or a department store, note the experts. That’s because you can bookmark a product in which you’re interested, then go to several other e-commerce sites and bookmark the same or similar products. “Then you can pull them up together for comparison shopping, and really have a good look at them,” said Hillebrand.
– Consider all costs. The price of the item isn’t the only expense you’ll be incurring. You’re also likely to face shipping and handling costs. For that reason, make sure you check out not only the per-item shipping cost but also whether a flat shipping charge per order applies in addition to per-item charges.
“Be aware,” Effross said. “A lot of people will go through the order, and they won’t focus on the $1 per item shipping charges. They want to look at the shipping charges in advance.”
– Note the return policy. Effross recommends that, before ordering, shoppers get answers to all the following questions. Can I return an item for any reason, or only if the item is broken? Is there a time limit on returns? Is there a “restocking fee” that will reduce the amount of money I’m refunded? And can I get money back at all, or only store credit?
– Keep records. The ABA recommends keeping records of your transaction by printing out all pertinent Web pages, Effross said. He urges shoppers to print Web pages containing order forms and terms and conditions of the purchase, as well as the e-mail confirmation, if any, from the seller. Also keep records of any correspondence, either through e-mail or conventional mails. Such correspondence can be important later, he noted.
“The Web page could change at any time or go off-line. It’s not like looking at a page of a catalog. If it changes or goes off-line, you could have no record it ever existed, or that it said what you’re claiming it said.”
– Look for privacy policies. Locate the Web site’s privacy policy and read it carefully, Effross urges. “They may be reserving the right to sell your transaction information to other parties,” he said. “You could find yourself getting e-mail or hard-copy mail you didn’t want to get. If a privacy policy is not part of the Web site, consumers may want to shop elsewhere.”
– Consider privacy at work. If you’re ordering items from a computer in your workplace, be aware that some employers reserve the right to monitor e-mail. That could present a problem if, for instance, you’re ordering a book offering tips about landing a new job, even if you intend it as a gift item for someone else.
“You may get an e-mail (confirmation) with the name of the book or other product you’ve ordered,” said Mark Budnitz, professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta and co-chair of the ABA’s working group on consumer protection. “People perceive e-mail as private, and they don’t realize it can be open to the same kind of monitoring as other kinds of employee activities.”
– Check the seller’s address. Grant recommends that on-line shoppers take careful note of the company or individual’s physical address. “It’s really important to know their location in the physical world, because it’s in the physical world that you’ll be pursuing them if there is a problem,” she said.
– Get timely information. To make sure you’re accessing the most recent information about product pricing and availability, check the date the Web site was last updated. If it was some time ago, you may be wasting your time ordering an item no longer in stock, or one whose price has changed.
– Pay the safest way. On-line shoppers are advised in almost all cases to pay by credit card, rather than by check or money order. If you pay by check or money order, your money is likely to be gone by the time you discover a problem, Grant said. “If you’ve paid by credit card, you have the right to dispute the bill,” she said.
– Know when to give up. While almost anything is available on the Internet, there are instances in which you’re best advised to abandon on-line shopping. Such is the case when you can’t find what you’re searching for, or where illustrations, photos and descriptions don’t adequately communicate the nature of the product.
For more on safe on-line shopping, visit the ABA’s Web site at www.
safeshopping.org, the NCL’s site at www.nclnet.org and Consumer Union’s site at www.consumer reports.org.
