to hate the very idea of online shopping and absolutely refuse to participate?

[GodzillasBumcheek]

For one - i haven't got a credit card (by choice - can't spend money i don't have), and even if i did, how secure are 'secure' pages, really?

For two - how can i try shoes on over an ethernet cable? how can i feel the fabric of a scarf (obv so i know if i'm going to find it itchy, not because i'm some sort of Cloth-Snob).

For three - if you end up with damaged or unsuitable goods how much more awkward is it to send them back? (That's a genuine question - i really don't know!)

And finally - when you get grocery shopping online how irritating is it when you end up with a box of eighteen petits filous which go off tomorrow?

Come on - is it really that great?

ps: I do have a fruit and veg shop 2 mins from me and buy all those myself. Fresh bread if need be too. But for everything else, Ocado all the way!

I love internet shopping, around 95% of what I buy comes from the net. I shop a lot and probably only had one damaged item in the last three years so no major hassle re returns.

Tesco are good with sell by dates here so cant complain but have yet to try Ocado.

Amazon are fab, all our books, dvds, toys etc come from there and the service and prices are fab.

Clothes wise, I tend to stick to Next and a few others for us all as I know the sizes that fit so few returns and the couriers collect anyway so easy to return.

I do have a CC for shopping on the net but you dont need one, it can be done with debit cards on trusted sites.

No carrying, can shop in bulk and at a time to suit me - whats not to love about shopping online

OP, I think you're mad not to try it. I was struggling with a baby in the baby seat and a toddler who either runs off or lies on the floor or sits in the trolley so there's no room for food. I always forgot what I'd gone in for and ended up buying stuff I dodn't need. I've been doing it online for 3 weeks and I love it! A lovely man arrives and bring my stuff to the kitchen through the garage and virtually puts it in the fridge for me! With regards to substitutes, you can opt to not have them but it adds a little excitement to a wednesday morning I reckon!
And you can always say you don't want the rose when you ordered red!!

YABVU

There is no way in Hell I would go back to doing the weekly supermarket shop with the DCs in tow. God, the memory of it makes me come out in a cold sweat.

I do Waitrose shopping online and either pick it up from the store or get it delivered. Either way they are SO supremely helpful. I don't think I've ever had a problem with crap subsitutes or short sell-by dates with Waitrose. Also, they don't even charge for the service.

I shopped with Tesco for a couple of years and they were generally very good. Subsitutions / non-availability were more frequent, BUT you could usually get some great money off discounts on e.g. hit uk deals (I almost always got at least £7 off a £70 shop).

It really IS that great. I've been getting Tescos every week since about 2001 and I love it to bits. It isn't any hassle sending things back, for any reason - just hand it back to the driver and your card is refunded. Just imagine all those hours I've saved of trudging round the supermarket putting things IN the trolley, then getting them back OUT at the checkout, then back IN again to trudge to the car, then OUT intot the boot, then into the house when you get home. I'm fairly sick of the sight of that 5kg pack of washing powder by then, I can tell you For anything I feel I need to choose, like a Sunday joint or steaks, I go to the local butchers, but day to day items that don't vary from week to week - they can bring 'em to my door, thank you.

We live a fair way away from the nearest town too so even the delivery charge probably doesn't cost much more than driving to the store.

Amazon also is invaluable for all sorts - not just books - though my daughter is a bookshop manager and does find it depressing when people walk into her shop, examine books, note down titles andd say to friend 'right, ok, now we'll go home and get it off Amazon' - which does happen - and will probably put independent bookshops out of a job one day. Their low book prices and free delivery on most items has made them almost unbeatable, alas.

YABVU - so there.

No, it's a personal choice and doesn't affect us in any way so do as you please.

I love looking at clothes and things online, you can go and say 'show me dresses' rather than seacrhing through things, and the online sale racks are so much easier to naviagate than in the shop. And I can show things to you lovely people!

I also love getting groceries delivered, although I prefer to so squeezy foods like fruit or some veg (you dno't need to squeeze your carrots though) in person. But for stocking up on tins and pasta it's great, especially since I live on the second floor adn they will bring it up the stairs

Ocado don't deliver in my area either (they only deliver in the m25 area don't they?).

But IMO the internet is fabulous and I wouldn't be without it.

1. you can have a credit card without having to be spending money you don't have. I have two - a tesco one and a marks and spencers one, both of which earn me points for every £1 I spen and thus earn me vouchers every quarter. I put all my purchases on the credit cards and pay them off in full at the end of every month. I have an offset mortgage so dh's salary sits in the bank all month nicely offsetting the mortgage and then at the end of the month we just pay off the credit cards with what's in the bank. Works on so many levels. I do only use credit cards online as I have had a card cloaned once (wasn't from a shopping site but still...) and it was insured and I didn't lose any money. So the credit card does add that extra level of security in the rare event the site isn't as secure as you thought. (tesco etc though are well-known brands so you're only likely to hit a problem if you shopped on a more obscure site).

1. I buy clothes from next online but that's about it. And as we have next down the road if I don't like them I simply take them back to the shop.

1. Have had minor issues with sell-by dates but never anything major.

Have been shopping with tescos for about ten years now and have never had any bizarre substitutions or any problems with their deliveries.

The way I see it is that online shopping actually gives me more of a level of independence. As I can't see I have to go into a shop, wait for an assistant to come and help me and go round the shop with me to find all the things I want, run the risk that they might not tell me all the items that are available, then, if it's a big shop I would have to catch a taxi home with it all (which would cost me the same if not more than the delivery charge). But online I can pick the brand of product I want, without having to rely on someone to do it for me.

I love food shopping online. I find it difficult to fit a weeks worth of food in my trolley without squashing all my bread etc. so it's great to get somebody else to bring it all to the front door for me. I have food shopped online for around 10 years now and I haven't had any major problems in that time. If they bring something close to its sell by date there is a little note on my receipt and I can return the item to the driver if I don't want it. It also means I'm less likely to impulse buy things I don't need. I always pay with a debit card too - so no credit card required. It's also great if you're trying new recipes because you can sit at home and shop with all your cookery books in front of you - so you don't forget anything!

I do sometimes do the shop myself but it's only because I quite enjoy it knowing I don't have to go if I don't want to.

I dont use it for grocery shopping but for clothes its amazing - no unflattering changing rooms, no oh, we have sold out of that size/colour etc´ no traipsing round clammy malls with a bored baby, no pressure to choose something becaue otherwise the trip is wasted. And much better choice - no little sample ranges, I can shop from the whole stores of franchises rather than a few items.

And No Greeters. For some reason I have an irrational hatred of greeters (sorry to any greeters reading but really, why?)

I get a nice box delivered, I can try on the items as outfits, try different height heels, appropriate underwear etc, in front of a well lit mirror in my room. If it works - great, Ive got it in the right size- If not, I drop it off at the post office the next day.
Underwear - no being shown racks of flesh coloured minimizing grannybras in large sizes by some patronising flat chested sales assistant - 'Well, your size is a problem dear' Yay for Bravissimo and Figleaves!

And internet banking! brilliant

Ocado deliver to my parents on South Coast so 'not only wthin M25'.

I love t'interweb at christmas. I go for a browse in the shops as early in the season as I can bear and then look on various websites to see where I can get various items the cheapest.

So I save money and calories from lugging bags around

I love the websites that have free delivery and buy from them the most.

Libras is right though, it is evil and bad to go to specialist shops with well-trained assistants (eg the running shops where you walk on a treadmill and they assess your gait) and then go buy the shoes cheaper on the internet. That £3 you saved was paying for the expert advice, and if you dno't buy from them they won't exist.

YABU. Online grocery shopping is FAB. What's so great about visitingt a supermarket yourself?
I do agree I wouldn't buy shoes or clothes online though as it is of course better to try things on

Actually i would really miss visiting the shops myself.

Being a Billy no-mates (or 1 mate now, thanks to MN) i don't get much variety of adult conversations in RL, so talking to the cashier is quite fun. Probably not for the cashier, but they are employed to be nice, lol.

Also, i use the time shopping to have some one-to-one time with each of my older children (they take alternate weeks), and window shop with them in the clothes and toy department...can't do that online!

About returning things - so doesthat meanyou unpack all your shopping while the man waits there patiently?

Could I have said "I say, my man, these avocadoes are too hard, can I have a soft one?"

See it's no good to me. I want a soft one then and there, what profiteth it me if I get money back for hard ones?

I love internet shopping. Buy most stuff through Amazon, landsend etc. If it is wrong, you just package it up and send it back - free of course.

I use Ocado for food, and mysupermarket (usually ends up Sainsburys) for cleaning/household stuff. I don't have a car so it is fabulous.

Not had any issues with quality and I also ask for no substitutions on stuff.

GodzillasBumcheek "in the clothes and toy department...can't do that online!"

Yes you can. I window shop online all the time.

As an aside re Ocado - are Waitrose frozen chickens as ethical as their fresh ones?

Having just got back from dragging 2 whining kids round the supermarket, hauling them in/out of the car, carrying all groceries inside etc all the time thinking 'if I still lived in London Ocado would have brought all this to my door' I think YABVU.

It's not even a bad shopping experience here, the store isn't crowded, the checkout clerks are friendly, they pack your stuff and help you take it out the car AND the kids get free balloons. It's just that once you've experienced the delicious pleasure of having your groceries put in your kitchen for you, hauling round the shops just seems so awful.

Guess what, I've just used that mysupermarket site (isn't it marvellous?) as an experiment and have done a shop in Ocado - they've compared Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda, and Ocado comes out cheaper!

So I'm ethical, posh and cheap all at the same time!

It has it advantages...
when we lived more rural and my younger 2 were a tiddler and toddler and utter nightmares, it was an advantage and saved me some stress...but nowadays I don't use it, because, yeah, I like to look at what I buy...

oh, when I did online grocery shopping I did save money....that is a positive, of course...

Dammit you have to spend £75 to get reasonable delivery charge...

Right, Morloth, how the heck do i window shop with my DD on a laptop?

And more to the point - what's with these horrendous delivery charges? I only live within a £4 taxi ride?!

i do bulk groceries on line.save time,money.no brainer

what's mysupermarket??

I love internet shopping too for reasons that have already been mentioned

1. More choice and hold more stock than you get on the average high street - I like buying craft materials and a lot of towns don't even have craft shops these days. On-line clothes stores have the whole range, not just what they can fit in.

1. It is often cheaper, even with the postage added - I do the sums first before ordering.

1. It has saved my life, or rather on DH's on several occasions. DH forgot MIL's last birthday until the last minute. I did't have time to go into town, DH was working. I ordered online and the item was delivered the next day, gift wrapped by the very nice lady who owned the site. MIL was delighted, crisis was averted.

I do love RL shopping too but with two youngish DSs shopping usually involves a trip to the bank, a quick look round the toy shop whilst they whinge about not being allowed anything and then a trip to the book shop. By the time they have done all the things they are interested in they have had enough and want to go home.

I love Amazon and can while away a good hour looking at 'My Recommendations' and adding to my already substantial wish list. So yes you can window shop online - any time of the day or night, not just for a few hours during the day.