HORRIFIED by the idea of jostling with the crowds in Causeway Bay? Whether you are looking for underwear, computer software or the latest hi-fi gadgetry, you need look no further than your postbox.
Anything you might need to buy can be purchased by mail order.
But Hong Kong-based shoppers should be careful because the territory's mail-order business is in its infancy, which means consumers have few safeguards.
A Andrews & Company (Mail Order) set up in Hong Kong in 1962, making it the first local catalogue-shopping firm. But the company still has very little custom from Hong Kong-based buyers.
Managing director Andrew Au Kwok-wan said: 'It really is so convenient to shop in Hong Kong that the product has to be something unique for people to buy by mail order.' But television and magazine advertising and direct-mail marketing were beginning to take off, he said.
As more local shoppers order by mail - or phone, fax or Internet - more can fall prey to the potential drawbacks of shopping from home, such as goods that take too long to arrive, or fail to come at all.
And on the Internet, there is nothing to stop a couple of 14-year-olds from creating a bogus site that looks like an on-line shopping mall and which includes ways of paying for 'goods' by credit card.
