Hitler's hair for sale on Internet, a newspaper headline said. Wow - you really can get anything you want over the Net these days. Alas, Hitler's hair is actually not on the list at the new buy4now Internet service, but groceries from Superquinn are. So, pragmatically, Hitler can wait. But the opportunity to do the weekly shopping from the comfort of my own home can't.

So this is what my first experience of doing the weekly shop online was like. First I settled down last Friday night to enter buy4now.ie, which introduces the user to a range of shopping opportunities, including Arnotts and Easons. Click on Superquinn and you're through that portal.

First, as with all these things, you have to register, provide an e-mail address, credit card information etc. All standard stuff. Then you are ushered into the selection process. There is a "first timers' guide" which I would recommend, unless you are a thoroughly experienced and confident Internet user or shopper.

After that, lists come up and you click on what you want. The item is automatically added to your virtual shopping trolley and the progressive cost is shown at the top of the list. The process takes, roughly, between 15 minutes and half an hour, depending on how extensive your order. There is a flat £5 fee (which I think they should mention at the beginning of the process, rather than the end). And within 24 hours, it was all in our kitchen.

There was an 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. estimate for delivery on Saturday but the order didn't arrive until nearly 2 p.m. This was bearable. Most home delivery services have a window of no-opportunity in them, which I would put at around an hour, given traffic conditions and the difficulty drivers might have in finding a new address.

Criticisms: the site has no memory facility. Most of us get pretty much the same basic list every week, and it would make enormous sense if there was a way to store this list, retrieve it and add to or modify it. Even when I went to the computer to check that the items delivered matched what I had ordered, there was no record of the order (compiled the night before) despite the fact that I had registered, and was greeted with "Hello Angela Long" when I returned to the site.

We had been delivered a 10 kilo bag of potatoes instead of the 2.5 kilo bag we'd ordered, but whether we have been charged for this or the bigger bag remains shrouded in mystery until we get our credit card bill. We found a checkout receipt, the normal type, in our case of wine and it recorded the 10 kilo bag. We don't expect to get any information from the hard workers at Superquinn, as when we phoned to inquire when our shopping was coming, it was hard to find anybody who knew anything about the service. (We had presumed our delivery was coming from the nearest Superquinn , in Blackrock, but in fact the lads had to battle through traffic all the way from Walkinstown.)

In short, this service needs fine tuning, but it works. For the rest of the weekend (in between preparing potato dishes) I was singing a joyful, joyous, song at the prospect of never again having to: 1) Locate a spot that I can get into without embellishing my car with erratic GT stripes from the concrete pillars in the underground car park of Blackrock shopping centre; 2) Find a trolley; 3) Get through the supermarket without being the victim or instigator of market rage - "Why do people leave their ****ing trolleys stuck in the middle of the aisle while they go wandering off"; 4) Get through the queue to the checkout without causing four-trolley pileups; 5) Get the trolley back down to the car without having a hernia. Hurrah!

Tesco Ireland started its Irish Internet delivery service just a few days after the buy4now/Superquinn one. I can't report on the efficacy of that one as, last Sunday, I couldn't proceed past registration on its site, www.tesco.ie Although the page said only one telephone number was required, I could not get by without entering an evening number as well as a daytime. Also the Tesco site refused to accept my e-mail address, even though I tried both mine and my husband's, which have worked perfectly well for two years. So my way was barred, and perhaps the Tesco site needed a little refinement too.