Okay, so we've heard a lot about the positive aspects of virtual supermarkets, but what about the down side? Obviously, if you're the type of person who likes to think of grocery shopping as a sensuous experience of smelling the wonderful food smells, touching/feeling to select the freshest produce, reading food labels and making your decisions about what products will suit you best, you'll be disappointed with the online shopping experience. The biggest advantage of online shopping is convenience and time-saving. Whether you save money or spend more by shopping online depends on the situation, really. For example, one supermarket might charge you for the delivery charges, the other might not have the discounts online that are otherwise available in its real-world counterpart.

Here's a summary to help you weigh the pros and cons:

Pros:

• Convenient and saves a lot of time
• No traffic to wait in, no parking spaces to be found, no checkout queues.
• You don't have to go out in the damp/cold weather
• No human interaction
• In certain cases, you can enjoy things not normally available in your region (This applies mainly to specialist food shops as most supermarkets have delivery restricted to a certain radius)
• If you're abroad, you can get a taste of home (not all companies in question deliver abroad)
• In some cases, the product may actually work out cheaper because the vendor didn't have to pay expensive overheads.
• You can shop as and when you like - at 2:32 a.m., in your dressing gown, with your 'extra-moisturising, deep-nourishing' ghastly avocado pack on.
• In certain cases, you can save your shopping list, so that you don't have to make it everytime you shop.

Cons:

• Delivery charges and /or a minimum order requirement
• No human interaction
• Inability to inspect the products , so you lose out on the tactile experience of shopping.
• Limited range of products for price comparisons (some virtual supermarkets)

  Maybe you're a seasoned online-grocery shopper. Or maybe you want to start, but you've heard all about internet frauds and are unsure if you should be giving out your credit card details. Either way, here are a general set of rules to keep in mind while shopping for food, or for that matter, anything on the internet.

  1) Check out the company: Your safest bet is to do business with reputed, reliable companies, although this means that you might be losing out on better deals from smaller, lesser-known vendors. Find out as many details about the company as possible. Beware of vendors that do not give out their location and/or contact details. Trust your instincts - if you feel uncomfortable about a particular site, buy your stuff elsewhere.

  2) Seals of approval: Many companies like ShopSafe, Which? and TrustUK are in the business of ensuring that Internet shoppers in the UK get a good and safe deal. Any business that is a member of these organisations has to comply with certain standards to be certified with their seals of approval. Which means your homework is being done by these companies! You can directly go to these sites and check out their members list.

  3) Read the small print: This includes the warranties, refund/exchange policies and the delivery charges. Reading this in advance ensures that you don't receive any nasty shocks when your order is delivered. If you can’t find them, ask the seller to provide them to you in writing. Another important document is the 'Privacy policy' of the company. This tells you how the information gathered from you will be used by the company. If a site does not have a privacy policy posted, you may not want to do business with that site.

  4) Secure Servers: When you do decide to do business with a particular firm, check if their servers are secure before giving out your credit card details. Without getting too technical, this means that your credit card details are sent in an encoded format to the virtual supermarket, so that no one can intercept it in transit. There are simple ways of finding out if a server is secure: firstly, the key or lock in the bottom panel of your browser will appear locked or highlighted. The address of the website will begin with 'https://www... ' as opposed to 'http://www...'.

  Also, never send your credit card details in an email.

  5) Delivery times: Before you place your order, check to see when it could be delivered, so that you can be there to receive it or make alternative arrangements.

  6). Print the terms: You should print out and date a copy of terms, conditions, warranties, item description, company information, even confirming e-mails, and save them with your records of your purchase. Always print out your order confirmation.

  Contrary to popular belief, shopping on the internet is extremely safe. If you're worried about giving out your credit cards details on the internet, you might want to consider the following.
   

  • Giving out your credit card number on the Internet (over a secure server) is as safe as giving it out on the phone or on any application form, if not more. The secure server encrypts your details in such a manner that it is impossible for anyone other than the receiver to decrypt it. Of course, the person you send the details to might misuse it too, but that's a risk you take with your credit card anywhere.
  • Most so-called Internet credit card 'frauds' turn out to be excuses to cover up some undesirable purchases (such as an order from a pornographic site) from the partner.
  • Because the risk of fraudulent use of the credit card over the internet is so remote, many credit card companies in the UK will not hold you liable for unauthorised purchases. Read More
  • New EU regulations effective since Oct 2000 are forcing credit-card firms and online retailers to take better care of customers From the Sunday Times
  • Sunday Times, 12/11/00 Links to organisations that protect the Internet Consumers' rights in the UK.

  If you're still sceptical and yet want to shop online, there's more technology to your rescue. Banks like the AIB have introduced the concept of 'one use' credit cards. More on this brilliant concept.