FROM THE PRINT EDITION

Mark Phillips, a 53-year-old computer consultant from Seattle, isn’t necessarily a Francophile, but he does appreciate quality merchandise. While surfing the Web one day, he stumbled onto the All Things French site. “I hadn’t seen products quite like that,” he says. He bought some candy nougats and fruit jams, and now visits the site occasionally to look for other unique items.

The cookie-cutter malls with their chain stores and the mail-order catalogs all peddle a familiar range of products. If you’re looking for something with an international flavor, a great place to start is online, where merchants from around the world are plying their wares in a borderless souk. You’ll look as if you’ve just gotten back from a ’round-the-world (or cross-country) tour, when you really haven’t even gone ’round the corner.

Cyberspace shopping is like traveling without the baggage restrictions. You can buy as much as you can afford, and you can bring it all back, or have it gift-wrapped and delivered directly to the recipient’s doorstep. Keep in mind, however, that the same import restrictions you’d encounter at airport customs still apply; that means certain products, such as European sausages or crafts made from endangered animals, are illegal. You must also abide by your state and local laws when you buy alcoholic beverages. Make sure you know the site’s delivery and payment procedures; smaller companies may require prepayment and could take weeks to ship your order.

Culture Club
Perhaps the most innovative site to enter e-commerce since the hot online auction house eBay, is eZiba (http://www.eziba.com). Devoted to handmade crafts “true to the cultural traditions of the country of origin,” eZiba (ziba means “beautiful” in Persian) will import an eclectic mix of artifacts—new, handcrafted, and antique—from the far corners of the globe: tile tabletops from Morocco, Mexican pottery, handblown glass from Malta, antique Japanese kimonos, wooden toys from the Czech Republic. Though you obviously can’t touch the goods, full-color images, thorough descriptions, and even ethnic music take you as close to the bazaar as you can get at your desktop. (In the future, Chanalan drums will accompany your excursion into the African section.)

Finding specialty items online is mostly hit-or-miss, which is what makes eZiba so promising. Small boutiques often have limited Web sites, or none at all. Major search engines compile shopping directories but usually list only major retailers. Excite offers one of the most comprehensive directories. Planet Earth Mall (www.planetearth mall.com) has a “regional stores” section that links to establishments from the Kauai Fruit and Flower Company and Paris Duty Free to House of Ireland, Vermont Only, and Washington’s Island Fare of the San Juans. More good sites for cultural products include:

• Dreamtime Pacific: Australian art, boomerangs, sculptures, and didgeridoos (http://www.dreamtimepacific.com.au).

• Classic England: British antiques and hand-built furnishings like wooden clocks from London’s City Clocks, Duntisbourne blown glass and ceramics, as well as hand-knit Yorkshire Village sweaters and lamb’s wool scarves from Swaledale Woollens (http://www.classicengland.co.uk).

• Harvie and Hudson: Custom-made shirts from the respected London tailor, with your choice of cuff styles and shirttail lengths (http://www.harvieandhudson.com).

• KaribKorners: Caribbean-made art with tropical motifs, home furnishings, and sculptures in glass, brass, wood, and wire (http://www.karibkorners.com).

• All Things French: Products crafted by French artisans in France and French-speaking countries such as Algeria, French Polynesia, and French Canada (http://www.allthingsfrench.com).

• MexMall: Handcrafted Mexican pewter and talavera figures, wool tapestries, pre-Hispanic clay masks, and calendars (http://www.mexmall.com).

• German-American Shopping Mall: Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs, German dirndls, and colorful kinder sweaters (http://www.german-usa.com).

• House of Tartan: A wide variety of Scottish tartan kilts and other adorments, clan badges, and tiepins (http://www.house-of-tartan.scotland.net).

• Cowboy Mall: Western art, riding gear, even links to rodeos, dude ranches, and feed yards (http://www.cowboymall.com).

Global Noshing
Thanks to innovations in packaging materials and procedures, you can order many perishable items such as live seafood and fresh fruit that might be delicacies in your neck of the woods. Shop for your New Year’s Eve party at Ethnic Grocer (www.ethnicgrocer.com), a clearinghouse for ethnic foods with thousands of products from many different countries: saffron, chanterelles mushrooms, octopus in soy and olive oil, wasabi, and vodka paste sauce. Selections are organized by country, food (pastas, etc.), and type of dish (appetizers, etc.). The site enhances the culinary experience with recipes for dishes such as arjard (Thai cucumber sauce), followed by a handy hot button to buy the ingredients. Other special treats for foodies:

• Made in Maine: Live Maine lobsters (http://www.madeinmaine.com).

• Crabcakes Express: Chesapeake Bay crab cakes (http://www.crabcakeexpress.com).

• Webb’s Citrus Candies: Florida citrus fruits (http://www.webbsworld.com/wb_citrus.htm).

• Southern Corners: Cooked stone crab claws (with a hammer) from Florida, Ellis Brothers Georgia pecans, Aunt Ruby’s North Carolina peanuts, and many more southern specialties (http://www.southerncorners.com).

• Brits Abroad: All-British brands like Marmite spread and Fray Bentos steak-and-kidney pie (http://www.britsabroad.co.uk).

• Harrods Online: Hundreds of products from the world-famous London department store. The site launches this winter (http://www.harrods.com).

Credit Check
The Grinches of the world will tell you that shopping online is full of pitfalls, especially the hazards of credit card fraud. And the numbers attest to our fears: Only about one percent of U.S. households shop on the Web, amounting to less than U.S. $1 billion a year in transactions. The introduction of Secure Electronic Transaction (SET), a new security feature currently being tested by credit card companies in some 25 countries, may change all that. One research firm predicts that online shopping could surpass U.S. $10 billion annually after the launch of SET. In the meantime, many of the specialty merchants you’ll find on the Web still require a phone call to process an order. And remember, in cases of fraud, credit card users are only liable for the first U.S. $50, the same risk you face when you make any transaction with plastic.