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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Olivia Barker

Aired December 06, 2003 - 07:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JIM MORET, CNN ANCHOR: OK, rhetorical question time. Don't you just love going to the mall this time of year and fighting for a parking space and being elbowed by the crowds? If not, how about some online shopping?
Olivia Barker of "USA Today" is here to tell us how to get the best price on the Net and to avoid the ripoffs. How are you, Olivia?

OLIVIA BARKER, "USA TODAY": Hey.

MORET: This explosion, talk about this, in online shopping, because I know last year it was fairly healthy, but this year there are so many more people going online to search for different bargains and so forth.

BARKER: It's really amazing. I've been writing stories about online shopping for the past three years, and every year our coverage gets bigger and broader, just because there are so many more e-tailers out there, and there are so many more of these shopping comparison sites, which I wrote about this year, which are like minimalls in themselves.

So the whole experience has really been transferred to the Web, and it's so much more secure and easy and, my goodness, with this snowstorm, you can just imagine how people are using it.

MORET: Well, I've already started my shopping. This is not really gender specific. Men and women are using these comparison sites. And there are a number of search engines, aren't there?

BARKER: Right, exactly. Half a dozen of these comparison sites you can go to, and they will set out a wide range of answers and results and e-tailers. And then I look at it almost as buying airplane tickets. I shop around to Orbitz, Travelocity, all those sites. And if I'm looking to buy a gift this season, I'm going to go to at least five or six of these shopping sites to look for the best price...

MORET: And...

BARKER: ... because they vary widely.

MORET: ... we actually did that. Let's put up one of the items we looked for, Hokey Pokey Elmo.

BARKER: Yes. MORET: I know a lot of moms and dads are looking for this. We went to frugal.com, My Simon, BizRate. Let's take a look, if we can, at some of the prices. We got prices ranging from $23.99 to $62.53, huge discrepancy, if you look at percentage wise. And that's really one of the advantages, isn't it, for people at home to look? Even if they intend to go a brick-and-mortar retailer, they can get a sense of what the price should be.

BARKER: Oh, completely. And what's so interesting here is the suggested retail price is $29.99. So you see lots of sellers are already going below the SRP, and then that $62.53, I just have got to think that's somebody who thinks there's going to be some huge demand on Elmo, which we know there is, but...

MORET: Well, let's look at another item, Xbox Holiday Bundle. Here another big discrepancy, really, $169.99 to $259.99. And in a way, I think you're right, I think some people are hoping for shortages, so they're expecting to get a premium on some of these prices, but...

BARKER: Definitely. And those numbers at the higher end of the scale, I think, are often from small, maverick, perhaps, e-tailing outfits, you know, they're not necessarily from your Amazons or Wal- Marts or CompUSAs. So really, when you look at more of the average or the median cost, you can see that there is some overlap.

MORET: And we even checked out a higher-end item, a notebook computer, Sony Vaio. The range not percentage wise as great, $1,949 to $2,255, but here again, you can see that you can save $100, $200, $300 even on high-ticket items.

BARKER: You can, and it's amazing, because three or four years ago, I think, people would have been scared to buy a high-ticket item on the Web. But you've got very reputable companies selling them. And if you know what you want, a Sony Vaio, then you can just go right there and see the full range.

MORET: Olivia, you mentioned security earlier, and you said it's a safe place to shop. I know a lot of people are so frightened to give their credit card information over the Web. Talk about safety.

BARKER: Well, there are certain of these shopping sites that have really made an effort to show shoppers, with symbols, padlocks, little key signs, that they are secure.

But even beyond that, I think just the rule of thumb is to shop at places that you know, shop where there's a brick-and-mortar equivalent, like Wal-Mart, or a department store, Sears, J.C. Penney, or, even, of course, Amazon by now is such a behemoth, and it's done so well that you can only trust them.

Be a little bit more cautious of the places that you don't know about, because they will come up especially on a site like frugal.com, which is just a grab-bag, like it's a Google counterpart.

MORET: Well, one thing I have noticed is that many of the merchants online are actually rated by consumers who've used those sites. So even on a lesser-known merchant, other people's experiences will be noted, and you could perhaps put your faith in some lesser- known companies.

BARKER: That's right, that's right. BizRate is doing that a lot, shopping.com is a new amalgam of DealTime and ePinions. And ePinions is all about ratings, goods and sites. So, you know, if you trust your neighbor, sure, go ahead. I think we've really come a long way in the past three or four years.

MORET: Olivia Barker of "USA Today," thanks a lot for helping us make our holiday shopping a little less tense.

BARKER: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 6, 2003 - 07:14   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM MORET, CNN ANCHOR: OK, rhetorical question time. Don't you just love going to the mall this time of year and fighting for a parking space and being elbowed by the crowds? If not, how about some online shopping?
Olivia Barker of "USA Today" is here to tell us how to get the best price on the Net and to avoid the ripoffs. How are you, Olivia?

OLIVIA BARKER, "USA TODAY": Hey.

MORET: This explosion, talk about this, in online shopping, because I know last year it was fairly healthy, but this year there are so many more people going online to search for different bargains and so forth.

BARKER: It's really amazing. I've been writing stories about online shopping for the past three years, and every year our coverage gets bigger and broader, just because there are so many more e-tailers out there, and there are so many more of these shopping comparison sites, which I wrote about this year, which are like minimalls in themselves.

So the whole experience has really been transferred to the Web, and it's so much more secure and easy and, my goodness, with this snowstorm, you can just imagine how people are using it.

MORET: Well, I've already started my shopping. This is not really gender specific. Men and women are using these comparison sites. And there are a number of search engines, aren't there?

BARKER: Right, exactly. Half a dozen of these comparison sites you can go to, and they will set out a wide range of answers and results and e-tailers. And then I look at it almost as buying airplane tickets. I shop around to Orbitz, Travelocity, all those sites. And if I'm looking to buy a gift this season, I'm going to go to at least five or six of these shopping sites to look for the best price...

MORET: And...

BARKER: ... because they vary widely.

MORET: ... we actually did that. Let's put up one of the items we looked for, Hokey Pokey Elmo.

BARKER: Yes. MORET: I know a lot of moms and dads are looking for this. We went to frugal.com, My Simon, BizRate. Let's take a look, if we can, at some of the prices. We got prices ranging from $23.99 to $62.53, huge discrepancy, if you look at percentage wise. And that's really one of the advantages, isn't it, for people at home to look? Even if they intend to go a brick-and-mortar retailer, they can get a sense of what the price should be.

BARKER: Oh, completely. And what's so interesting here is the suggested retail price is $29.99. So you see lots of sellers are already going below the SRP, and then that $62.53, I just have got to think that's somebody who thinks there's going to be some huge demand on Elmo, which we know there is, but...

MORET: Well, let's look at another item, Xbox Holiday Bundle. Here another big discrepancy, really, $169.99 to $259.99. And in a way, I think you're right, I think some people are hoping for shortages, so they're expecting to get a premium on some of these prices, but...

BARKER: Definitely. And those numbers at the higher end of the scale, I think, are often from small, maverick, perhaps, e-tailing outfits, you know, they're not necessarily from your Amazons or Wal- Marts or CompUSAs. So really, when you look at more of the average or the median cost, you can see that there is some overlap.

MORET: And we even checked out a higher-end item, a notebook computer, Sony Vaio. The range not percentage wise as great, $1,949 to $2,255, but here again, you can see that you can save $100, $200, $300 even on high-ticket items.

BARKER: You can, and it's amazing, because three or four years ago, I think, people would have been scared to buy a high-ticket item on the Web. But you've got very reputable companies selling them. And if you know what you want, a Sony Vaio, then you can just go right there and see the full range.

MORET: Olivia, you mentioned security earlier, and you said it's a safe place to shop. I know a lot of people are so frightened to give their credit card information over the Web. Talk about safety.

BARKER: Well, there are certain of these shopping sites that have really made an effort to show shoppers, with symbols, padlocks, little key signs, that they are secure.

But even beyond that, I think just the rule of thumb is to shop at places that you know, shop where there's a brick-and-mortar equivalent, like Wal-Mart, or a department store, Sears, J.C. Penney, or, even, of course, Amazon by now is such a behemoth, and it's done so well that you can only trust them.

Be a little bit more cautious of the places that you don't know about, because they will come up especially on a site like frugal.com, which is just a grab-bag, like it's a Google counterpart.

MORET: Well, one thing I have noticed is that many of the merchants online are actually rated by consumers who've used those sites. So even on a lesser-known merchant, other people's experiences will be noted, and you could perhaps put your faith in some lesser- known companies.

BARKER: That's right, that's right. BizRate is doing that a lot, shopping.com is a new amalgam of DealTime and ePinions. And ePinions is all about ratings, goods and sites. So, you know, if you trust your neighbor, sure, go ahead. I think we've really come a long way in the past three or four years.

MORET: Olivia Barker of "USA Today," thanks a lot for helping us make our holiday shopping a little less tense.

BARKER: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com