Synopsis:
WE TAKE THE GUESSWORK OUT OF ONLINE SHOPPING
Attention shoppers! Tens of thousands of Internet retailers are clamoring for your business, but you stand a greater chance of being struck by lightning than of finding the best online shops out there. Now get ready to be struck by lightning over and over again, because you hold in your hands the first edition of the most complete, authoritative guide to online shopping that has ever been available—thepurplebook™.
Here are more than 1,600 of the best Internet shopping sites— selected, tested, and organized for your information and convenience. Every site in this book has been poked, prodded, scrutinized, and held to a rigorous set of standards. For every store reviewed here, six or seven were left out because they simply were not up to par.
Those sites that are featured have demonstrated superior qualities of product selection, consumer service, and/or price, covering a full range of tastes and interests. thepurplebook, at long last, makes it easy to find the right something for yourself and everyone on your shopping list.
Find vital information and the most exciting sites for these essential categories:
Art & Collectibles
Charity
Entertainment
Epicurean
Gadgets & Electronics
Health & Beauty
Home & Garden
Lifestyles & Megastores
Maternity
Minors
Men’s Apparel
Pets
Seniors
Shoes & Accessories
Sports & Outdoors
Stationery & Gifts
Travel
Weddings
Women’s Apparel
About the Author:
Frustrated by the seemingly random results generated by most Internet search engines, Hillary Mendelsohn decided to create a comprehensive resource to help online shoppers like herself, drawing on her experience as a busy professional and equally busy wife and parent.
With an education in literature and the law, Mendelsohn began her career in the entertainment industry, co-founding a management and production company before helping to spin off toys, apparel and other products from entertainment properties such as Terminator 2, Mortal Kombat and Baywatch at The Licensing Group in Los Angeles. A year later she launched her own consulting firm, Poetic Licensing, which has since brought its marketing expertise to such clients as Warner Bros., Franchise Pictures, Sega, Imax, and the Vatican.
Several years ago, Mendelsohn's first, late-night attempt at online shopping led her to a revelation — and a new venture. Having typed a "very specific" query into a search engine and received no less than 367 matches, she found that only seven had any relevance. With no available resource guide on the market, she began to create online shopping lists for herself. They proved popular among her friends. So popular, in fact, that Mendelsohn spent three years compiling the ultimate resource: thepurplebook.
As a religious user of guides such as Zagat, Mendelsohn began to create her own online shopping lists for herself, grouping entries into various categories such as Apparel and Collectibles. When her friends started asking for these lists, she realized there was nothing like this available and started to brainstorm a published guide, one that assessed Web sites and their products based on price, selection, uniqueness and convenience (e.g., Can an item be returned to a brick-and-mortar venue?). In June 2000, thepurplebook began to take form and it now will be published as a Bantam Trade Paperback in November 2003.
During the three years from its conception, Mendelsohn has personally researched more than 25,000 e-commerce sites across roughly 20 categories, culling more than 1,600 listings for the first print run of thepurplebook. As an arbiter of what qualifies she draws from the aforementioned criteria, as well as her discerning tastes and her experience as a busy mother of two.
"You won't find many of the sites listed in thepurplebook on the first ten pages of search engines, so how would you find them?" she says. "The Internet has the potential to offer busy people a way to get the most out of their time, and there are real bargains and unique items out there for the picking. It's a matter of finding just what you want, and that's what this resource guide is all about."
Hillary Mendelsohn is actively involved with several organizations including C.O.A.C.H. for kids, providing mobile medical treatment for low-income children through Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles; and is the executive director of FLASH, a safety and preparedness program newly launched in all of California's 8,000 public schools.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
