Dear LPG

I know it is often said that, once you get to a certain age, the hardest person to learn anything about the internet from is one of your children, but I think that my mum is doing quite well under my instruction.  She has an email address and can get to it by herself, and she has lately discovered the wonders of buying the odd thing online too.

For some, shopping this way is good fun and convenient, and for others who find it difficult to get out (perhaps because of the problems that getting out and about in winter weather brings or for those with limited mobility), it is nice to still be able to choose exactly what you want at the shops and not have to completely depend on someone else to make all the choices for you.  But my mum is becoming quite good at finding her way around the electronic high street as we call it. 

In reality our high street shops are disappearing quite quickly and the internet has to take a lot of the blame for the closures, but in the same way that we know what shops we prefer when walking around our borough; it is not a bad idea to learn about the internet shops that best suit our needs. 

The easiest example of this can be seen when you are shopping for groceries because reality and the internet are quite similar here.    I think that most will agree that Waitrose and Marks and spencer’s are arguably the most expensive shops to go to for your weekly food shop while, Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s would be seen as next on the list.   Asda and the Co Op are somewhere in the mix, and with Aldi and Lidl thought of as the least expensive, and placed somewhere near the bottom of that list.  We all have differing opinions on which of these give the best value for money but most people who know are likely to agree that the internet reflects more or less in the same way pricewise.  (It has to be said that, to my knowledge, Aldi and Lidl are a little behind with the cross over to the internet shopping market so far but they are catching up)

The point is that most of us who go to the shops know about these shops and the internet tells a very similar story to reality when it comes down to the weekly grocery shop, but that is where the two high streets’ similarities part company. 

I hope to write about some of the other genre of internet shops in the near future and I also hope that other reader’s internet shoppers will  have sons and daughters who may be able to help by sharing their thoughts on the subject, although I think that I have written enough for lesson one.

WK, Lewisham. 

LPG have found each of these shop’s websites so that readers can take a look , but we know that some of them will only let you see more of what they have on offer once you sign up with them.  We would like to stress that we are not suggesting that this is a good thing to do until you have taken some advice on if it would be best for you, but taking a look might be interesting.

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