You'd have to be living under a rock not to notice the way retailing and consumerism are changing right before our very eyes. The internet and a variety of online services are bringing traditional retailing to your home via your personal computer.

No more driving to your local mall, parking the car, waiting in line only to find they don't have the product you're looking for (or it's not in your favorite color or size.) Now, for the first time in history, you can order hundreds of thousands of goods and services from the comfort of your own home via your PC. This is the online shopping experience!

Online Shopper Magazine was created just for you. It's a wide ranging directory of goods and services that can be ordered from your home and, in most cases, delivered right to your door!

With the growth of the internet and new online services, there is no limit to the products that are available to you all in one place. Cars, clothing, computers, cameras, travel, jewels, foods, sporting goods, event tickets, banking and even cigars - are a keystroke away.

Online shopper Magazine helps you find your way through the busy world of the Web and helps you to identify those outlets that have what you're looking for without spending precious time "surfing" for the things you want. In short, Online Shopper get you what you want when you want it, as fast and efficiently as possible

To quote Michael Dell, the young CEO of fast-rising direct vendor, Dell Computer, "the only thing faster and more efficient than shopping on the Web is mental telepathy."

You, our reader, are in a time and place where you are uniquely equipped to enjoy everything the modern world has to offer. Enjoy more of them faster with Online Shopper!

The Future of Shopping is Here
(author-uncredited)

In the days of the first computers (room-sized data crunchers) visions of future machines portrayed them as menacing. From the evilly aloof (HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey) to the mechanically impersonal ( the Jetson's prefab-meal dispensing chef), computers were seen as inhuman and impersonal objects. Early visionaries certainly understood the power of computers to transform our daily lives but overlooked the fact that computers would become a comfortably personal component of our lives. Computer shopping stretches our time, our imagination, and our dollars.

Americans have embraced computer technology quickly. In the short time since the advent of the microprocessors made desktop computing a reality, computers have become an indespensable way of life. Homes now boast multiple machines - laptops, desktop models, even handheld data caches capable of faxing from the beach. Airplanes provide data hookups for those unable to spend a short flight without getting wired. Far from making our society mechanical and cold, computers have brought the world together quickly and enabled us to go places in a moment that we can't travel to physically.

Online malls offer all of the shopping convenience we could expect, and more. Fresh flowers from Hawaii, cigars from South America, sweaters from Iceland, and fresh salmon from Alaska are as close as the click of a button. A trip through an online mall reveals a world of possibilities.

Some places we go online don't exist in the physical world. Amazon.com is a solely-online bookseller; it's doors are never closed (nor are they open for cappuccino-sippers and page-turners). Amazon.com's advantages are many. Open 24 hours, it is able to search, locate, and send any title in print. Travelocity is a similarly at-the-ready site for travelers and vacationers looking for travel bargains and planning their getaways. Sampling itineraries and charting journeys takes little effort, and booking one's own trip gives a sense of adventure and possibility. Virtual Vinyards opens wide the cellars of America's finest wineries to the Web browser, offering online shoppers perfect gifts and the opportunity to start (or compliment) their own wine collection.

Some retailers long used to traditional shopping have leaped into the Web and established virtual stores. Spiegel hosts a site chock-full of the singular wares that have made it America's favorite one-stop catalog shop for generations. Spiegel is the same one-stop bonanza shoppers have cherished for years, only now it's interactive ans constantly fresh.

New technology also enables us to easily obtain treasures of the past; available at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange are heirloom seed varieties from the heart of Thomas Jefferson's Virginia. The organically grown plants offered by Southern Exposure's devoted horticulturists are varieties free of modern "improvements", including pesticides. Similarly, antique stores such as the Highlander Antique Mall and Collectors Online offer instant heirlooms for the discerning (or brand new) antique shopper.

Online shopping is shopping at it's finest, allowing for leisure and research while offering speed and efficiency. Any computer becomes the means by which dreams are fulfilled, problems are solved and possibilities are opened which are only limited by our imaginations.