If you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping yet, don’t panic and start slogging rum and eggnog: Instead, as you slog rum and eggnog, you can be content and cozy in the knowledge that you’re far from alone–and there’s shopping help.
Last year, the average consumer had more than 48 percent of his or her shopping to do a week before Christmas, the National Retail Federation found. And for all you holiday slowpokes, MSN Shopping (a part of Microsoft) has created Procrastination Central at shopping.msn.com.
Procrastination Central offers a daily listing of stores that can deliver gifts in time for the holidays. For example, at press time we learned that if you click on today’s date, you’ll find you can send digital cameras, camcorders and iPods from MP Superstore and Godiva chocolates.
Click on tomorrow’s date and you can get cool stuff at Pottery Barn Kids, as well as free shipping, in the nick of time. And if you’re the pokiest shopper of them all, on Dec. 24 you can still send flowers and magazine subscriptions.
The site also offers gift guides, which list the hottest items in such categories as clothing, electronics, and gifts under $25. It also does searches on items you want, including side-by-side comparisons of features and prices. It even includes information on returns and customer service policies for various brand names.
Retailers listed range from drugstore.com to Eddie Bauer, JCPenney and Circuit City. (Just beware that not all retailers will have gifts available to ship in time for Christmas.)