Purchasing Christmas Gifts Online

I have never purchased Christmas gifts online. I enjoy the shopping experience too much to buy something over the computer. I know it's a bit strange, but I like the hustle and bustle of the holiday season and making the personal effort to buy the best gift possible. However, this past Christmas, I decided to purchase two items from Borders. com.

The first gift was for my sister-in-law. I received the newly-published book I ordered within the promised three-day time period and the system appeared to work flawlessly. But the other gift - a three-book, used paperback set for my teenage nephew, made me wonder whether buying online was all it was cracked up to be. I would have had better success if I purchased my nephew's used books on ebay. Then I would have at least been able to contact the individual who was selling the item. In this case, though, my only recourse was to wait for some stranger to send me the books.

Since I executed the online purchases about 10 days before Christmas, I thought that I would receive both of my gifts in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, the used paperbacks didn't arrive before I left to visit family for the holidays, so my nephew would have to wait for his present. Of course, when I checked the progress of my order (or lack thereof), I learned that the payment had been accepted and the shipment was en route to the local Borders store. That was more than a month ago.

After making about six personal visits to Borders since late December with no delivery in sight, the books finally arrived this week. I can only hope that my nephew doesn't get a complex and think that his uncle forgot about his Christmas present.

This got me to thinking: How many other shoppers have had negative experiences while shopping online? I would be interested to know if this was just an isolated case or if it is fairly common to have to wait for days to receive the intended shipment. (editor@tblnet.com)

FOLLOW-UP: Three weeks ago, I wrote in this column about my hopes that the Chicago Bears would be playing the Green Bay Packers for the NFC Championship to determine who goes to the Super Bowl. Although my hometown team didn't win the game, it is a great consolation prize to have the Packers playing for the championship trophy in Dallas,TX, in two weeks. And, because of my allegiance to Green Bay whenever they don't play Chicago, I will be rooting for the Packers over the Steelers on Super Bowl Sunday. My prediction: Green Bay 24, Steelers 23.