Is online shopping loosing ground to traditional forms of commerce?

A recent survey by ShopSmart magazine found that women value a bargain above all else. Eighty-seven percent of women surveyed said that price was the most important thing to them when shopping. Interestingly, nearly 60% of them agreed that the best bargains were at Wal-Mart and Target, while only 17% said that the best bargains were found online.

As an inveterate shopper, I was a little surprised to see that so few women felt they could get the best price online. Comparison shopping sites, like Shopzilla and PriceGrabber in particular, were created exclusively to help people do quick comparison shopping amongst different vendor offerings. Services like Epinions and the newer ShopWiki (with video reviews, a new search engine, and user opinions) try to create a network of friendly, trusted opinions to surround the shopping experience.

In recent years online shopping has been on a fast trajectory. Just last year the holiday shopping season saw a 24% growth in online spending. But ShopSmart's data could be an early warning sign that the Internet has become too cumbersome and untrustworthy a place. Wal-Mart and Target appear to have touched a nerve when it comes to prices you can count on and places you can trust.

Shoppers, concluded the report, rely mostly on friends and family (45%) as trusted sources for shopping. The least trusted sources of shopping advice were sales people (39%) and advertising (31%). Numbers of people who relied on the Internet for advice were not reported.

What do places like Target and Wal-Mart have that the Internet does not? Simple. They are places where you know you're getting a reasonable deal just by virtue of walking in the door. You don't have to visit web sites and constantly compare. You don't have to feel the buyer's remorse of finding a better deal on another Internet site one hour after you've made your purchase. You can touch the goods, comparing quality and price. Comparison shopping sites that list the stores offering the merchandise you're looking for all work differently. Some figure in shipping and handling, some know if the item is available, some rank the store's reputation, others don't. Some feature special stores as part of their business arrangement, too, making consumers skeptical about the quality of the information. Translated into a single sentence: Making a smart purchase means a lot of work and a fair degree of savvy.

I was surprised to see the results of this survey and to see that Internet shopping played so small a part in women's shopping lives. How would you fare on the ShopSmart survey? Are you an online shopper or would you rather visit the store? Are bargains your passion or are you looking to save time even more than money?