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Somehow, I've never thought it would be so hard finding a gift for Mom. I guess I was thinking that being her child, I would know what she wanted. As a child, I've followed her around the house; I've seen her cooking all sorts of meals, watching sad movies on the TV, and generally fussing about the house. I know that she likes ice cream, baby figurines, non-stick cookware, khaki pants, needlepoint, and manicures (but not in that order).

It's no big deal buying gifts for my mom whenever a special occasion comes around. I'll just pop into the nearest arcade, go to her favorite shop, 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 nowadays I find myself wandering around from shop to shop with a glazed look in my eyes, trying to sort out the overabundant items and ideas that scream at me from the rows of shelves and brightly-lit displays at the local shopping mall. I've spent the past four hours going from place to place, and still no gift. The Christmas lights are starting to hurt my eyes, my feet are hurting from all the walking, 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. Being Internet-savvy, I know there are a lot of online gift shops on the Web. '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. So I take a deep breath, sent out a short prayer for above, and dived straight 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.

What online shoppers are looking for is the convenience and ease of use that good online stores are supposed to provide to their customers. 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 started my own gift shop on the Net shortly after realizing that I could attract more shoppers by building 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 last minute gifts for any occasion.