Shopping the World: Over 300 Mail Order Sources for Canadian Consumers

Greg Turko is a policy analyst at the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and
Universities.

Retail analysts have observed that mail-order shopping is becoming more
popular as consumers have less and less time, and as mail-order
retailers become more specialized, more sophisticated, and more
reputable.

Shopping the World is a must-have guidebook for stay-at-home shoppers.
Garber has assembled a truly remarkable collection of mail-order
shopping opportunities from around the world. The well-laid-out and
organized listings cover categories as diverse as food and hot tubs.
Each entry contains information about the retailer and the product or
service, and about such things as credit cards accepted, returns policy,
and minimum-order requirements. There are 320 listings, though,
inevitably, there are also some omissions—for example, New York’s
excellent high-grade tea distributor Grace Tea Company. This however, is
a very minor quibble.

As valuable as the listings is the 47-page preface, which deals with
consumer information such as customs and import regulations, the “grey
market,” and various cautions and advice for the would-be shopper,
mail order or otherwise. The book is worth purchasing for the preface
alone. Telephone shopping has truly arrived.