THE CUTTING EDGE: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : Shopping Via On-Line Services Is Enough to Make You Drop

If there’s one thing I’m hoping for this holiday season, besides peace on earth and so forth, it’s that my friends and relatives stay away from the Big Three on-line services when it comes time to shop for me.

Otherwise, they just might end up on Prodigy’s CheeseBoard, where packages of cheese and the like are available based on your Zodiac sign. I selfishly looked up my own sign and learned that, “While fast-paced Gemini turn to expedient snacks during the day, they love to feast on evening gourmet fare.” Thus, an astrologically correct package of baby gouda, mousse truffle, French mini-toast and Dutch almond tart goes for $28.

Dualist or not, I would seem the ideal candidate for on-line shopping. I have a fast modem, accounts on every service, and an abiding hatred of traffic and shopping malls. Unfortunately, after a day spent cruising America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy, I must report that shopping on the Big Three is basically for the birds. I found the experience almost as time-consuming and frustrating as hitting the stores, with only a fraction of the selection.

The most striking thing I discovered was how vastly inferior shopping on the Big Three is compared to shopping from catalogues, which is how even computer-addicted yuppie scum like me still do a good bit of our buying.

Lest you think me too harsh, let me describe my experience; you be the judge. I began my virtual shopping trip, appropriately enough, on the day after Thanksgiving, and my first stop was CompuServe (GO Shopping).

It looked promising enough at first, with 162 merchants including such well-known vendors as Brooks Bros., JC Penney and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I decided to stick to the familiar, so I headed for Land’s End and tried searching “turtleneck.” The only thing that turned up was a $129 cashmere job. Where were the cheapo cotton ones I wear all the time? I tried searching “sweaters,” and got none, which seemed like failing to find snow in Siberia, and so I tried again with “sweater,” which turned up seven, still a paltry showing compared to the Land’s End catalogue.

Worse yet, you can’t see them. That’s right. They’re selling sweaters you can’t even see. This was the most bizarre aspect of shopping the Big Three--the extent to which apparel, jewelry and other items are offered with no images. The JC Penney site on CompuServe does offer some images, but had no turtleneck, so I had no idea how theirs looked either. And a boy’s cotton sweater, described as “really warm,” has a “rolled neckline,” whatever that is, but no picture. Who on earth is shopping this way?

On Prodigy (Jump shopping), they offer to let you see a Land’s End turtleneck, but when you click for the image, you get one of those goofball NAPLPS graphics, which is a sort of cartoon sketch of a person in a turtleneck. The catalogue, by contrast, offers crystal-clear photographs showing the color and even the texture of products before you buy. Instead of waiting and waiting for data to get through your modem, you can simply turn the page. And you can talk to a human 24 hours a day toll-free.

Bad enough that some vendors want you to buy clothes without seeing them. On America Online, at the Fragrance Counter, they want you to buy perfume without smelling it.

I was wondering whether there might be some way to download a fragrance file--you know, some self-extracting molecules of Insense or Minotaure --when I found the “fragrance advisor,” which allows you to click “fresh,” “office,” “romantic,” etc. and get told what to buy.

The Eddie Bauer shop on AOL is a little better; the selection seemed a bit larger than that of some competitors, and they let you see everything in reasonably fast-loading photographs. Still, it’s no easier than the Eddie Bauer catalogue.

AOL also offers Shoppers Express, a grocery delivery service that works with local supermarkets. In my ZIP code the system tells me I’d get delivery from Pavilions, which would charge $11.95 for the service. I decided to try it and found that it worked great until AOL hung up on me in mid-order. Sigh.

AOL also offers something called Shoppers Advantage, a sort of membership club that even non-members may enter. I tried finding some books. Shoppers Advantage immediately offered me the chance to search by manufacturer, features and price. Just the way I think about books too. The AOL Online Bookstore wasn’t much better.

So much for shopping on the Big Three, where the bottom line is bah humbug. Next week, I’ll take you shopping on the Internet. But you’d better hold my hand, because out there you can really get lost.

Daniel Akst welcomes messages at Dan.Akst@latimes.com. His World Wide Web page is athttps://www.caprica.com/~akst/