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Sree's
Thoughts on Last-minute Online Gifts:
- Last
year, lots of people got burned, so go with low
expectations.
- Some
sites promised delivery by Christmas for orders
placed as last as Saturday.
- Consider
using e-mailable gift certificates.
- Be
sure to tell recepients not to delete the e-mail
certificates -- they look like spam
- Try
Kozmo-ing something if you have have missed the
FedEx & UPS deadline -- even on Christmas Day.
E-mail
Gift Certificates:
Amazon.com
Giftcertificates.com
One-hour delivery in 11 cities,
including X'mas Day:
Kozmo.com
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Friday,
Dec. 21, 6:40 a.m. (three shopping days till Christmas)
--
If you are like me, you plenty of gifts still to be purchased.
Many sites will let you order till Saturday for delivery
in time for Christmas, if you want to ship a gift. But as
you know, so many people have had bad experiences shopping
online that you need to have low expectations -- these are
last-minute purchases, after all.
TRY E-MAIL GIFT CERTIFICATES
Sites like Amazon.com let you e-mail a gift certificate
to your family or friends. They need e-mail access of course.
Basically, they get a code that can be used when shopping
on the site to redeem the value of the gift.
The best place to get a sense of the variety is on Giftcertificates.com.
These include Lands' End, The Sharper Image, Foot Locker
and much more. You can even use what they call a "Super
Certificate" which works across dozens of different sites.
THE
DOWNSIDE
I have found that people don't expect to receive such gifts
online, so in many cases, they ignore the e-mail, thinking
it is spam or junkmail. So what I do is send my own e-mail
in advance saying, "Hello, you are about to receive
a gift certificate via e-mail from such-and-such store,
please use it." You see, the stores love it if your
friends don't cash the certificate -- after all, you've
already spent the money.
AND
IF YOU ARE REALLY LATE
And
if you're too late to make the FedEx or UPS shipment, I'd
consider using Kozmo.com. You just go to the site and order
a gift -- they usually have it delivered in about an hour.
They make deliveries on Christmas Day as well and operate
in 11 cities -- including Boston, LA, San Francisco and
Chicago. Of course, with the extar orders, it may take more
than an hour. On Wednesday night, I sent a gift to my boss
and it arrived in about an hour.
ONE
LAST THOUGHT
Be
patient when you are trying to shop online these last couple
of days. Lots of sites are jammed and slow to respond. And,
as we keep saying, be careful out there.
Reax?
o
o o o o
