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Your Baby Today: New Baby, New Mom
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By
Linda Henry for Your Baby Today
For a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy or parents
with preschoolers in tow, a trip to the mall becomes a question
of "How badly do we really need this item?" But with almost
half of U.S. households on line, shopping over the Internet can
turn mall-weary parents into virtual shopping machines. "If
I have a choice," says Hilary Wagner, mother of 5-year-old
Sara and 3-year-old Josh, "I'd much rather shop on line. I
hate dealing with parking, and dragging the kids into the store,
knowing the minute we walk through the doors the kids will explode."
Not all shop owners are open for e-business. Deloitte & Touche
surveyed 400 traditional retailers and consumer goods manufacturers
and found that only one-fourth of them sold their products on line.
While it's expected that these retailers will eventually have to
sink or swim in the new global market, in the meantime on-line shoppers
are clicking their way to "e-tailers" - stores that sell
only over the web. It's safe to say that every item a child could
possibly need is currently available on line. Parents-to-be can
outfit the entire nursery from their home computer: diaper pails,
cribs, layettes, monitors, strollers, carseats- you name it. Among
a vast array of products, Rightstart.com offers a $4 package of
diaper sacks and a $300 breast pump, with free shipping and handling
on all orders. When you shop at babycenter.com, shipping is $5 -
whether you order a canister of wipes or heavy wooden cradle. At
babystyle.com, parents (or benevolent grandparents) can order a
complete nursery simply by clicking "I want it all." Then,
for just $3,097.95 plus shipping and handling, your U.P.S. carrier
will deliver the Vintage Corsican Iron Crib, a wicker glider with
matching ottoman, a mobile, lamp, stepping stool, and various other
items that comprise the "Vanilla and Apple Pie" complete
themed nursery. (While the set does include a $36 tissue box, a
changing table must be purchased separately - or is that not necessary
for the sort of infant who might be ensconced in a Corsican crib?)
On-line shopping may even replace tag sales, auctions, and flea
markets. Looking for a gently-used Onesie? At ebay.com, sellers
post their auction items- often with photos- and potential buyers
bid on them. The trick at this site is to search the categories
as you would search a flea market: You never know what you might
find, from vintage baptism gowns, Easter dresses by Polly Flinders,
maternity clothes, porcelain dishes for children, and all things
Beanie. Wagner sold a set of pregnancy workout tapes to someone
in Taiwan for $24. She was so happy to be rid of them that she immediately
put the tapes in the mail. "It would probably be a good idea
to wait for the check to arrive from the buyer," she cautions,
"but in my situation it turned out all right. The buyer sent
the check." Meanwhile, retailers must prepare, because by 2004
it's predicted that 90 million households will have Internet access.
In order to survive, traditional retailers will have to become more
"consumer-centric," measuring their success in sales per
customer rather than sales per square foot. According to Price Waterhouse
Coopers, the world's largest provider of business advisory services,
"Business must move from mall-burbia to cyburbia." When
that happens, parents of the world will click a path to their doors,
er, web sites.
The content on these pages is provided as general information only
and should not be substituted for the advice of your physician.
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