Christmas store online

　　MANILA—Feeling like the Grinch and want to scrimp ( 节省)? Or in the mood to play Father Santa and splurge (挥 霍)? Shopping in a rush or on a tight budget?

　　If you are in the Philippines and are unwilling to brave the pandemonium (嘈杂) at shopping malls which erup ts every year around Christmas, there is an alternative . Online shopping at virtual malls and auction stores h as arrived in time for Christmas.

　　Mostly Roman Catholic, Filipinos mark Christmas as the year's biggest faith, family and retail event. They form long queues at shopping malls and face horrendous traffic jams from as early as September.

　　For the first time this Christmas, a growing number of them are discovering that the Internet is an alterna tive place to look for gifts for loved ones.

　　MyAyala. com, the largest online shopping mall in t he Philippines, was born in June 2000. In six months, i t has lured 10,000 shoppers to log on as members.

　　As a result, an average of 1,600 new shoppers buy g oods each month from the firm owned by the Ayala group of companies, which also runs the mammoth Glorietta mal l in Makati's financial district.

　　Although 95 percent of MyAyala. com's shoppers live in the Philippines, the volume of purchases by the five percent overseas is quite significant. Male shoppers ac count for 55 percent of the total and seven in 10 are b elow 30 years of age.

　　Favorite buys at the malls are also among the favor ite buys on the Internet, including flowers and chocola tes, bottles of wine, and gift packages.

　　MyAyala. com and another half-a-dozen Philippine-ba sed e-stores offer a variety of products for auction or retail purchases. Buyers may pay in cash, cheque or cre dit card in full, upon delivery or pick-up of the items .

　　But the breadth of choices within the space of a fe w clicks is likely to satisfy even the most finicky sho pper.

　　E-Regalo. com—from the Filipino word "regalo" for g ift, promises all sorts of items for all sorts of purpo ses, including birthdays, anniversaries, congratulation s, romance, thank you, house warming, birth of a baby, a reunion or sympathy.

　　Spruced up for the holidays, the site has added two new pages, Gift Express and In Season, to pitch sundry gift ideas for Christmas, including face and body cream s, chestnuts, poinsettia plants, and foods that are sta ndard Filipino Christmas fare.

　　With computer penetration in the Philippines at onl y one percent of the 77 million population, the growth opportunities for shopping malls are enormous.

　　By Malou Mangahas