I’m trying to convince myself that I’m not an online shopper.

But truth is I’m never comfortable with the online shopping thing. Sure I’ve done it.

Locally we have Trademe, which is like eBay buy for New Zealanders.

I’ve brought from Amazon in the UK, a phone case for the daughter, that was about NZ$14.00.

I brought some vinyl music from http://www.wowhd.co.nz The Elbow Definitive Vinyl, a couple of hundred NZ$, nights of angst!

Recently I brought shoes from http://www.shoes4u.co.nz This was a real interesting experience and driven by the fact that my current  excercise (walking) shoes have after just under 200kms are showing wear and tear, and if nothing else is important it’s looking good and having the good shoes on the feet.

I prefer Nike Free. I’ve been a big fan of them since forever. Having seen some in a sale recently at NZ$150 I was kind of tempted, they are around that price too in the Nike Outlet place.  So I had a google, and found two sites, and chose the Shoes4U one, for the simple reason that they took a credit card transaction, and not a paypal thing.

So I ordered a pair, all up in US$ 77.95 including the shipping. That was Thursday 31st January. Get home Monday and there is a card from the couriers saying go pick up a package. Which we thought was some university documents, because clearly something from Hong Kong isn’t going to get to Auckland in 4 days?

And the credit card hadn’t been debited yet.

Wrong. There they were. Delivered. The Credit card got debited that day, But that’s the first time the things have arrived before the card has been charged.

The Shoes4u.co.nz website is maddeningly difficult to navigate to log-on, check the shipment, give feedback and all that but they have a benchmark in service.

So here I sit a bit of this and a bit of that. I feel like I scored a real bargain, shoes for under NZ$100 saving me at least $50 in the colour I want to, not the run-out colours maybe in your style or not.

I also feel that I’ve let the local shops down too, it doesn’t feel right that you can the same shoes freighted in, and even if you add the GST part they work out NZ$35 dollars cheaper than on sale. They retail normally around $190-$200.

I’m all for buy local where I can, and where it makes sense.  I understand how the local retailers find the online shopping opportunities a real threat to them.

As it turns out I’m a bit of an online shopper and my purchases from overseas appear to be increasing, for someone that like to swap money for immediate possession of goods the online purchase always provides days of fret and worry. And one day I’ll get an import bill of some kind where they ping me for tax or something, Inevitable really. I’ve no doubt that you could get totally carried away and spend heaps of money buying all sorts of things, but I’d steer clear of laptops and tablets for now, because I’m not prepared to gamble money on things that may break, as opposed to shoes, for instance. And my purchases might never get above the $100, because like gambling that might be all I’m prepared to lose in one transaction.