Linked to the mall by a superhighway

Nigel Cope fills out an electronic form, then waits for the postman to deliver the goods

Last week the postman broughtme Deacon Blue's greatest hits compact disc, Our Town. True, it cost me pounds 15.79 from an electronic branch of Virgin, but I got it without leaving the house. The CD was the first fruit of my debut shopping spree on the information superhighway. And it came just five days after I ordered it.

How did I get it? After dialling up CompuServe, I clicked on "Shopping Basket", then on "Enter UK Shopping Centre". The screen fills with eight icons of the shops on the "Mall". Choosing the Virgin icon gave me a further set of choices, such as information on customer service and delivery, which tells you that one or two CDs have a delivery charge of 80p, rising to pounds 1.90 for five or more. There is also news on forthcoming releases. Did you know Fleetwood Mac's latest offering will be available at the virtual Virgin on 22 July?

The catalogue of records available is limited but then this is a trial. There are classical and pop sections and you can search by artist or alphabetically. Click on Deacon Blue's greatest hits and up comes a picture of the cover, but, alas, no list of tracks.

Payment is by Visa, MasterCard, Amex or Diners Club: you key in your address, telephone number and card number. When the order is finished you are shown a completed order form on the screen, just to check for mistakes. Then you sit back and wait. On

arrival the package includes a receipt and your credit card slip.

WH Smith's bookshop features a little more detail but its delivery system works less well than Virgin's. Orders are guaranteed within 14 days but Smith hopes to fulfil most within four or five. My copy of Alan Clark's Diaries took more than a week and Smith says it has been caught out by the level of demand. The books are listed under popular fiction, non-fiction, biography, etc. Choose one and the system gives you a picture of the cover, a brief synopsis and a few lines from a newspaper review.

One problem some companies face is their reliance on the postal system. The CD fitted through my letterbox but my postman nearly left Alan Clark's book under my doormat. This is a bigger problem for Sainsbury's Wine Direct system. Sainsbury says ifa customer is out, the courier, White Arrow, will contact a neighbour. If the neighbour is out, it will take the wine back and you will have to arrange a convenient time for delivery. For some reason it is not possible to do this first time round.

On Sainsbury's Internet wine pages you can choose by region, price or colour. Upon choosing - you must order a case - you are given a picture of the label and a brief description. Because of the security problems involved in keying in your credit card details on the Internet, Sainsbury takes your phone number and rings you back. It tells customers to allow 14 days for delivery but my case of Rioja and Jacob's Creek arrived within a week. The wine costs about the same as in a supermarket or off-licence. Delivery is free for two or more cases, but pounds 3.95 for a single case.

And now for my lawn-aerating sandals. The Innovations Gift Point has all those useless things you never knew you wanted. To find out what they are, you register by filling in a few basic details. You are immediately given a PIN, which you can store in the "bookmark" section of your Web browser. You are then given a list of categories: home, garden, travel, kitchen, etc. In the garden section there is a good-quality picture of the sandals. Then you just make a straightforward telephone booking.

MarketNet is a UK-based Internet shopping service for home insurance, legal services, travel, chocolate and flowers services. I wanted to send some flowers to my mum but held back when I was asked to type in my credit card details. I talked to MarketNet (see above), then went ahead - having clicked on the "secure" button and checked the "key" at the bottom of the Netscape browser was intact. I ordered the flowers in London on Tuesday; sadly, they did not arrive, as requested, in west Wales on Friday.

ON LINE SHOPPING

CompuServe:

Virgin Megastore Go Megastore

WH Smith Go WHSmith

Tesco wine Go Tesco

Dixons Go Dixons

Interflora Go UKinterflora

PC World Go UKPCWorld

PC Sports Go PC Sports Past Times Go Pasttimes

World Wide Web:

Sainsbury wine - http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk

MarketNet - http://mkn.co.uk (ChocNet, FlowerNet, TrustGuard home insurance)

Innovations - http://www.innovations.co.uk/giftpoint/

DigiCash - http://www.digicash.com

Netscape - http://home.mcom.com

If you want to take a look at the the many American stores on the Web, simply choose the business then electronic commerce options on Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com.