Indiana residents use Internet to avoid shopping mall crowds

INDIANAPOLIS -- Malls were packed Friday as shoppers kicked off the holiday shopping season, but a growing number of Indiana residents are avoiding crowds and traffic jams altogether by shopping online from home.\nA recent America Online survey ranked Indianapolis seventh in a list of cities that spend the most online. Last year, Indianapolis ranked 26th.\nThe new survey found that the average Internet shopper in Indianapolis spends $352 a month online.\n"(Online shopping) is becoming more mainstream," said Patrick Gates, AOL's vice president for commerce. "Before it was dominated by tech-savvy metropolitan areas."\nTwo-thirds of Internet shoppers from Indianapolis who responded to the survey said they will spend more money online this holiday season than last year. They expect to spend an average of $583 total on holiday shopping, with $259 of that being spent online.\nThe AOL survey was conducted among 8,000 people who shop online. It ranked Nashville, Tenn. first in the nation in online shopping.\nNationwide, online sales from Friday to Dec. 25 are expected to increase 42 percent over last year, according to Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass.-based company.\nA total of $12.2 billion is expected to be spent online nationwide.\nIndianapolis resident Tyler Sharp, who was shopping Friday at Indianapolis' Circle Centre Mall, said he has already purchased several holiday presents online, including a book from Barnes & Noble's Web site.\nSharp, 30, said he's never had any problems ordering online, but stays away from spending a lot of money in case there would be a shipping problem. Mostly he buys books and music.\n"I don't order anything too expensive because I'm afraid it might get lost," Sharp said.\nFloyd Tolliver, another Circle Centre shopper, said he buys PlayStation games for his kids online. The 38-year-old also uses the Internet to compare prices on other possible holiday presents.\n"You can kind of check out the market a little," Tolliver said.\nChecking prices online is becoming more popular, the AOL survey found.\nConnie Hatherill, 50, said she often compares prices online and then goes to the store to buy items. "It's like a supplement to (retail) shopping," she said.\nWhen Hatherill buys holiday presents online, she said she looks for Web sites of companies with a local store so the recipient of the gift can return it if needed.\nSome of the most popular online shopping sites are from stores with which shoppers are already familiar, Gates said. When Internet shopping first began, many people weren't comfortable giving their credit card information to unknown Web-based companies.\n"Online shoppers are feeling much safer about putting their information online," Gates said.\nSome businesses' Web sites now allow shoppers to search for products in nearby stores, saving them a trip to the store if a hard-to-find item is out of stock.\nOther sites offer free shipping or discounts at certain times. More than three-quarters of Indianapolis' Internet shoppers surveyed by AOL said it's important to them to get discounts online. Twenty-one percent said they look for sites that don't charge sales tax.\nSome shoppers still prefer the old fashioned way of doing business.\n"I don't touch the computer," said Susan Grand, who was shopping Friday at Circle Centre Mall. "I like to touch and feel what I'm buying"