Great article, Elaine. Nice work.

And I'm addicted to online shopping, too!
But one doesn't have to be teenage girl to love online shopping.
I'm a guy in my 20's and I'll admit it: I love online shopping!

After graduating from UI in May 2006, I went to teach English in Japan...and I'm still here, having a great time. Where I'm living (a place called Fukui) is kind of the middle of nowhere, so I do a lot of online shopping.

Here are to websites you (and others reading this) might find interesting:

http://www.rakuten.co.jp/
This site, Rakuten, is all in Japanese, but is a true online shopping mall. Also sorts of small mom and pop shops from all over Japan, as well as big brick & mortar retailers have online stores within this online mall. And its search functionality is great. It kind of like the Ebay of Japan, except that whereas Ebay is focused on online actions, Rakuten focused on online stores.

http://www.intletail.com
This is another site I like...and it is great for us international online consumers. A lot of online shops won't accept international orders, which can be frustrating. This awesome shopping directory lists only online shops that accept international orders. So for someone like me (a guy over 6 feet tall, in the middle of nowhere, Japan) this site is great, especially when I need to do some clothes shopping 'cuz I can't locally find anything that will fit me.

Well, I hope you found that interesting...

-Frank UI '06