2. Navigating the Virtual Marketplace

2.1. Websites & Portals

You can save time, hassle, and money by shopping for brand-name consumer products at the brand-name online stores prominently positioned on Internet portal sites. It's only natural that that's how you begin your online shopping experience.

Since the online world is new and strange, you are most likely to turn to the names that you trust. Confidence in dealing with other stores will come from isolated experiences--chance encounters, recommendations, and from interacting with other online shoppers.

Arriving at the home page of an online store, such as Wal-Mart, is very much like a storefront which promotes best selling items, sales and specials and other promotional information.

Exploring beyond the front "splash" page you will soon realize why online shopping is becoming very popular and in many ways is superior to shopping in "real-life" malls. Most sites allow you to browse through the site by category, such as clothing, electronic game systems, or books.

Many online shopping sites offer a search function which comes in very handy if you know what you want and are in a hurry. Type the product name, the manufacturer, type of product, or words to describe what you want to buy into the box, click search and a list of available products will be displayed in less than a minute!

Search engines are not always 100% user friendly. As with traditional search engines such as Yahoo, some of the commerce search engines may also bring forth the occasional dead link, or many irrelevant links. If the first term you search for doesn't solve your query try again with another keyword. Try to keep the search terms short and specific.

Eventually, your curiosity will grow, and you'll crave more exotic shopping experiences. You will sense that you have just barely touched the surface and wonder: What's really out there? How do you find truly unique items? How do you find the amazing bargains? Where is the revolutionary experience?

In this chapter, we'll introduce you to some basic tools that can help you take advantage of the unexpected opportunities lurking in the chaotic immensity of the Internet--search engines, comparison shopping sites, and the places where ordinary people like us can both buy and sell from one another without stores--classified ads, newsgroups, and auctions.