The Best of Online Shopping: The Prices' Guide to Fast and Easy Shopping on the Web [Paperback]

Lisa Price (Author), Jonathan Price (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 1999

A ONE-STOP SHOPPING GUIDE
FOR ALL YOUR ON-LINE BUYING NEEDS!

This essential book helps you find exactly what you want on the Web in no time flat--without having to struggle with slow downloads or the endless, irrelevant listings on search engines. From well-known giants like Amazon.com to promising upstarts like Plato's Toybox, these sites run the gamut of products and services, size and price. But they all have one thing in common: they're the best the Web has to offer. Inside you'll find

- Detailed descriptions of each e-shop, including its intended audience, atmosphere, and specialties
- A sample list of products for sale at each site
- Information on ordering methods, merchandise photo quality, gift wrapping, and delivery options
- A helpful cross-referenced index that allows you to find all the best sites for the product you want with just a quick glance
- Unique items, unusual buys, and real deals--all just a mouse click away!

The Best of On-line Shopping will also help you avoid scams, find great bargains, and bid like a pro at on-line auctions. There is a world of exciting products waiting for you, and you don't even have to get dressed to explore it. So sit back, relax, and start browsing!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Forty-eight million people are surfing the Web and 80 percent of them have plans to shop online, which would account for the nearly $1 billion that online stores are reaping. The question is no longer whether to shop online, but which vendors to bookmark.

One of the pleasures of online shopping is the ease of comparison browsing. With the online-business boom, however, there are now thousands of new stores, and a lot of confusion. Not all Web stores are equal, and hours can be lost--in the pursuit of saving time--perusing Web sites that provide scanty information or complicated procedures or both. And some Web sites turn out to be mere catalog pages and don't allow you to order at all.

Clearly, what's needed is an authoritative guide to quality online stores. Lisa and Jonathan Price visited more than 8,000 sites, and they rejected most of them. They sought online stores with secure ordering and stores that guarantee they won't pass your personal information along to other companies. They also looked for stores with fast and convenient search engines, full product descriptions, detailed pricing and shipping information, and reviews by critics and customers, as well as reasonable pricing, clear return policies, and lucid instructions.

They found nearly 1,000 stores that met their stringent criteria, and they present them in 78 shopping categories, listed alphabetically from Animal & Pet Supplies to Writing Tools. The table of contents can direct you to shops that sell batteries or basketballs, sail boats or chocolate, computers or hair-care products, maternity clothes, maps, stocks, travel adventures, or wine. All the Web sites are cross-referenced in a Web Site Addresses appendix, and again in a comprehensive index. The Prices describe what each online store offers, include some sample products, and summarize services such as search engines, photos, ordering, gift wrapping, and delivery.

This guide mitigates stress, confusion, and wasted time while it maximizes economical convenience--which is what you were after when you started shopping online in the first place, right? --Stephanie Gold

From the Inside Flap

A ONE-STOP SHOPPING GUIDE
FOR ALL YOUR ON-LINE BUYING NEEDS!

This essential book helps you find exactly what you want on the Web in no time flat--without having to struggle with slow downloads or the endless, irrelevant listings on search engines. From well-known giants like Amazon.com to promising upstarts like Plato's Toybox, these sites run the gamut of products and services, size and price. But they all have one thing in common: they're the best the Web has to offer. Inside you'll find

- Detailed descriptions of each e-shop, including its intended audience, atmosphere, and specialties
- A sample list of products for sale at each site
- Information on ordering methods, merchandise photo quality, gift wrapping, and delivery options
- A helpful cross-referenced index that allows you to find all the best sites for the product you want with just a quick glance
- Unique items, unusual buys, and real deals--all just a mouse click away!

The Best of On-line Shopping will also help you avoid scams, find great bargains, and bid like a pro at on-line auctions. There is a world of exciting products waiting for you, and you don't even have to get dressed to explore it. So sit back, relax, and start browsing!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (October 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345436814
• ISBN-13: 978-0345436818
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,935,871 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Before reading this book, I was wary of online shopping, December 11, 1999

By 

Charles Paine (Albuquerque, New Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best of Online Shopping: The Prices' Guide to Fast and Easy Shopping on the Web (Paperback)

Before picking up this excellent book, I was wary of online shopping -- and I still am, but now I'm intelligently wary. The authors do a marvelous job of helping understand what you can trust and what you can't, how online shopping works in all its various manifestations, and what strategies to use when you do shop online. The book showed me that online shopping is not (as I had thought) just for shopping addicts who need a fix 24 hours a day, but a great space for intelligent and discerning consumers. I'm still not a big spender online (or anywhere), but I've used the book to help me find some things I couldn't find anywhere else and at surprising prices. I think this book is going to go down in the so-far brief history of online commerce as a milestone achievement. It has certainly changed my views about WWW commerce and made me a better consumer. I can't say enough about this expansive, easy-to-use, fun, and informative work. I hope they plan to update this work regularly.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big help, November 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best of Online Shopping: The Prices' Guide to Fast and Easy Shopping on the Web (Paperback)

I was looking for different types of gifts besides the usuall. I found lots of neat stores that don't show up on the searches. I also liked the beginning part with all of the info about shopping online.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars much better than using the search engines, October 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best of Online Shopping: The Prices' Guide to Fast and Easy Shopping on the Web (Paperback)

I tried the searches and the shopping bots but always come up with the same old stores. This book showed me a whole new bunch of sites I'd never would have found.