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Morning News

Tips for Last-Minute Shopping On-Line

Aired December 20, 2000 - 10:39 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: If you are watching the calender, just about four or five days left of shopping until the Christmas Day hits. That means that clock is ticking ever louder for your last-minute doings.

If you have got kids too, and trying to find a very difficult toy out there, it may be difficult. Let's go on-line and see what we may be able to find out there.

At CNN Interactive, cnn.com, once again, here is Mr. Lockridge.

Good morning, Rick.

RICK LOCKRIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

It is difficult, If you are hoping for a magic bullet I don't think you will get that, but there might be some nice surprises for you. Now there are several ways to go about this. You could just go through all the Web sites that you can think of that might have toys, or you could use a search engine, but we decided to use a shopping engine. We use MySimon.com, maybe you have seen their TV commercials, also Store Runner is another good one. And we set out to find three toys: a Razor scooter, a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" handheld game, and a "Let's Pretend" Elmo doll.

So let's see how we did? Now, using MySimon we were able to find the Razor scooter. They had it on Amazon cheaper, but here on SportsAuthority.com is where we actually found it in stock and, in fact, they say they will ship it to you, and get it to you in time for Christmas. And the price on this particular model is about $130. So we kind of hit a home run with that one.

We went looking for the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" game. We did not have as much luck there. We could not find it anywhere. But we did find what I think will be an acceptable substitute. It is called "Who Wants to Beat Up a Millionaire?"

So let's go check that one out. And we see, this is a Sega Dreamcast game, a new one. Not exactly the most flattering portrait of Regis there. I think you would agree with me. Is that your final answer? Bill.

And then we also looked for the Elmo Let's Pretend, and we had mixed results there. We did find it, and we found it in stock at KayBee Toys, KBkids.com is actually the Web site for that. But they said they couldn't deliver it in time for Christmas.

So, Bill, I think you are going to have the same kind of experience that you are having in the real world. You have to look around a lot of places and take you best shot.

HEMMER: I was listening there, my microphone wasn't open.

What if they guarantee it, Rick, and it doesn't arrive on time? What is the recourse, if any?

LOCKRIDGE: Well, different Web sites are offering different policies. One is offering just to refund the money that you spent on shipping. That is not much of a break. Another was going to give you a $25 gift certificate, good for anything. And still another, was going to give you a $100 gift certificate. However, there are some caveats there. They say they will not honor that, if the shipping delay was not their fault. In other words, if it was weather related or mis-routed packages. And you got to figure in 99 percent of the cases, they are going to say that is what happened.

HEMMER: Quickly here, Rick, and a couple of years ago we thought we would be doing everything on-line by the year 2000.

LOCKRIDGE: You mean you are not.

HEMMER: I am getting closer. How much has it increased, do we know, between this year and say last year or the year before that?

LOCKRIDGE: Sure. The first shopping week of the season, it was up 40 percent over last year. And as of the most recent week for which figures are available, that is the week of December 18th, still up 28 percent of last year, with more than 30 millions Americans a week buying something on-line.

HEMMER: All right. The trend continues. Rick Lockridge, thanks again, at cnn.com. A quick preview there. And happy holiday, sir.

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