The Coolest Thing Revisited

This past weekend you would have found me once again scurrying around town doing still more Christmas shopping, finally with the end of my list clearly in sight. And 'scurrying' may be a bit too energetic to describe the sometimes painful process of getting through the agonizingly-slow-moving columns of traffic both outside as well as inside the stores. It was clearly obvious I was not alone in my task judging from the volume of shoppers out and about. I was thrilled to locate most of the gifts on my various lists, and of course some that were not. But as usual there remained several more challenging items left to still be procured.

Troughout the day I turned many times to my iPhone texting questions about a particular gift, or to search Google for something, to browse for comparable products, check prices, availability, shipping charges - at one point I even sat in the parking lot to order an item for home delivery after discovering the store did not have it in stock.

That evening back home, having unloaded the car and inventorying the day's booty, I finally kicked back in front of the fireplace, a glass of crisp chardonnay in hand, holiday music gently playing in the background. On the table next to me my iPhone began providing status updates for my online purchase - first the order confirmation, then the credit card receipt, then fulfillment, and ultimately the shipping confirmation with tracking number. All in the course of no more than thre to four hours time. I smiled.

While none of this is necessarily new, it is continuing evidence nevertheless of how technology is revolutionizing consumer shopping habits. Basking in the satisfaction of my day's accomplishments I reminisced about gift-shopping experiences of Christmases past, before the personal computer, the Internet, and the iPhone. It was a far more exhausting time and energy-consuming process, searching store shelves, driving from store to store, sometimes town-to-town, searching for a special item that just simply had to be under the tree.

Many people still enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the frenzy of the SHOP-PING experience and that's absolutely fine. But for me, I love my techno-tools and how they have simplified my gift-giving experience. Vendors are successfully delivering the sights and sounds of Christmas over the network. Now we just need to figure out how to deliver the smells of Christmas over the same network as well. Talk about integration!