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I've always thought that it would be easy shopping for Mum. I guess I was thinking that being her child, I would know what she wanted. I've followed her around the house when I was a child; I've seen her baking cookies and pies, watching those soap operas on the TV, and generally fussing about the house. I know that she likes coffee, dog figurines, non-stick cookware, denim pants, crotcheting, and manicures (but not in that order).

When Christmas comes around the corner, it's no big deal buying a special gift for her. I'll just pop into the shopping mall, go to her favorite outlet, and buy her a gift. Whenever I don't feel like going out, I can always fire up my computer and browse the online shops. Like I said; easy, right?

Well, for the first few occasions, it was definitely easy. But now I'm having a lot of trouble trying to find something better than the plates, aprons, baking pans, figurines, and other stuff that I've been buying for Mom. I've spent the past four hours going from place to place, and still no gift. My eyes are starting to hurt from the Christmas lights, my feet are DEFINITELY sore, and I know that if I have to listen to that pesky 'Deck the Halls' song one more time, I'm going to deck the first Santa Claus I see.

But there's one more option. I go home and log-in to my PC. I've shopped on the Web several times already, so I know what to do. 'Heh-heh, this is going to be easy', I think to myself. Why didn't I do this in the first place? I type in 'gifts for women' in Google and press ENTER. Big mistake. Almost a hundred websites appeared out of nowhere. It's going to take forever to sort this one out. With nowhere else to go, I said a short prayer and dived right in.

The first few websites were quite nice, but it seemed that I had to poke around some more to actually find the one present I wanted. The next several websites were the same. It really was the equivalent of walking around a shopping centre, but this time my index finger was the one hurting as I point-and-clicked my way around the Web. It was not as easy as I thought. Shopping online was supposed to be painless and fast.

Shoppers on the World Wide Web expect faster and easier shopping than what their local mall provides for them. They don't want to sift through layers and layers of categories just to find one item, and the prices and product description must be easily read. A friend once told me about a website where he had to read the product description in what seemed like fine print!

As for me, I set-up my own gift site on the Net shortly after realizing that I could attract more customers by designing the site based on what I learned from my own experiences as a shopper. Now I have no problem finding gifts for mom, and for everyone else, too.

About the author:

Azlan Irda is the co-founder of http://www.sarahgifts.com which provides great gifts for friends and family. Visit our website to find the perfect gift for any occasion.