Grinding the gears as you queue for parking, shouldering through the crowded streets or the corridors of a shopping centre, jostling fellow shoppers to see and feel the merchandise, finding you needed to shop in June if you wanted this year's coveted toy, queueing to pay for the goods you have managed to locate, grinding your teeth waiting to pay and exit the car-park . . .
Sounds familiar? Must be Christmas shopping time.
This year, with the advent of "real" online shopping options for Irish shoppers, some of the misery can be avoided. With the click of a mouse, you can shop from the comfort of your couch and wait for the deliveries to arrive.
Within the last two months, two major Irish portal sites have been launched. These put consumers in touch with a variety of real and virtual shops and services in Ireland and abroad.
Mr Ali Murdoch, managing director of Buy4now, which links customers with bricks-and-mortar shops in Ireland, says online shopping is still at the embryonic stage in Ireland. There are nearly one million people online, but only about 15 per cent have shopped online, with six per cent being regular shoppers. The UK equivalent is much higher, with 45 per cent shopping online and 22 per cent being regular buyers, according to Mr Murdoch.
"It was a chicken-and-egg situation in Ireland. There wasn't a lot to buy online so a lot of people weren't buying," he adds.
Buy4now was set up in October this year and already nearly 10,000 people are registered members. You don't need to be a member to shop, with the exception of Superquinn, which requires registration for delivery purposes. Mr Murdoch says members will be offered special offers, information and have an opportunity to give feedback in the future.
Participating shops include Arnotts, Atlantic Homecare, Superquinn, Eircom, Eason and Louis Copeland. Buy4now organises delivery and this can be tracked by members online.
Charges vary but there is a standard charge of £5 for food deliveries, which are now available in just over 50 per cent of the geographical area of Dublin.
Superquinn wines are going online next week and crates of 12 bottles will be delivered free, notes Mr Murdoch. Delivery charges for Atlantic Homecare are £5 in Dublin and £10 outside.
The Buy4now Christmas store will be launched on November 20th and there will be a fixed charge of £5 for delivery, regardless of the size of the order. A gift facility will allow customers to key in details of the person for whom they are buying and will then come up with 10 potential items.
Buy4now aims to have a three-day turnaround, with a possibility of same-day deliveries for groceries.
THE number of orders from abroad has surprised Mr Murdoch. People coming home for Christmas are placing orders rather than carrying presents home on the plane, he says.
"We have 30,000 products on offer. By the end of January that will have increased to 1.5 million. We have just launched a new site, Vagabond.ie, which sells hotel reservations at a discount," he adds.
Nollaig.net, the other major Irish portal, includes information on concerts, pantomimes, theatre, Christmas parties, late-night buses, chauffeur services, winter holidays and an opportunity to e-mail Santa as well as shopping opportunities.
Parts of the site are not yet fully developed so the Christmas party section listed only two restaurants, while the personal shopping service section had only one company. Set up on November 1st, director Mr Craig Delaney says nollaig.net has already had some 11,000 hits. "More than 15,000 people have registered for the competition (£5000 and holiday prizes) and that's before we start our banner ad campaign. We will be putting banner ads on the Ireland.com site, the Boston Globe's Boston.com site and on Unison."
If you're feeling charitable, nollaig.net allows you to leave a message, offering a toy donation. "We'll link you with the nearest charity in your area, which will collect the toys," says Mr Delaney.
The Christmas shopping section opened (at the time of writing) with the scary message that there were 41 days, eight hours, 50 minutes and 29 seconds to Christmas. By the time you read this, Christmas will be even closer. Help.
The menu of nollaig.net includes shopping centres, department stores, online shopping and toys.
Clicking on the online shopping link offers a wide choice, including Weshop, Arnotts, and Bandon Crystal.
Delivery times and charges vary with retailers. For instance, Arnotts charges £7 per order and delivers within three working days in the Republic, with gift vouchers sent free of charge via An Post.
Weshop sells exclusively Irish-made gifts and crafts from crystal to pottery to knitwear and books.
Orders within Ireland take one to two days to deliver, and there is a £10 delivery charge. Outside Ireland, the cost doubles and the delivery time is five to six days.
Nollaig.net provides a facility for children to e-mail Santa, who will duly reply. However, parents will need to supervise their children, as there is a link entitled Love Classified. This includes links to online dating sites for adults and a link to a site selling Viagra.
Of course, if you have sufficient money, you can just hand over the entire worry of Christmas shopping to a personal shopper.
Conciergeireland.com (with a link from nollaig.net), which was launched last October, might be the answer. Director Emma Filgas says "we offer three types of service - personal assistance (including shopping), home management and errand running.
"We have been around the stores both in town and outside and found a variety of different gifts. If someone rings up looking for help with Christmas gifts, we will ask for details such as age, hobbies, the amount they are willing to spend. Then, when we have agreed some ideas, we will shop. We call the client from the shop before we make a purchase. Then, if the shop doesn't deliver, we will. We try to get most tasks done within 72 hours," she adds.
The home-management service includes sourcing tradespeople such as plumbers and electricians, collecting house keys from the client, accompanying the tradesperson to the house, and returning the keys to the client's workplace. Errand-running includes grocery shopping and drycleaning.
The cost, for any of the services, is about £18 an hour and there is a mileage charge of 76p per mile. The company has three full-time staff based in Dublin and a network of up to 50 people around the State who are available on a part-time basis.
This Christmas may see a real surge in the use of online shopping and services but many people will still want to "see and feel" the quality before buying. Certain items, such as books, CDs, videos, groceries, wine, and gifts, are ideally suited to the click-and-buy approach, but it doesn't fit as well with other purchases such as clothes and shoes.
Some useful websites:
www.buy4now.ie
www.nollaig.net
www.conciergeireland.com
www.tesco.ie www.toys-n-ireland.com
www.clerys.com