Where is the easiest place to find green tea, computer skins and a solitaire engagement ring while saving gasoline? Of course, it is by shopping on the internet.

In many ways the internet has revolutionized the world. In almost any home in the world, there is some type of access to the internet. Even in third world countries, the use of the internet is bringing work to people that are able to make far more money than every before possible in their country through telecommuting.

Internet shopping grew along with the internet. As download speeds have become faster, shopping has become more popular. In 1994, a small internet book store called Amazon began. There had been other bookstores started as much as two years earlier, but Amazon took off and ran.

In that same year, pizza hut started to allow customers to order their favorite pizza online for pick up or delivery. Several other successful stores began in the same year.

It was not until 1995 that today’s auction giant, e-Bay was began. Now you can buy almost anything(there are some restricted items) on e-bay. Some may work great, others are only for the collectors of broken items. E-Bay now has many sister sites world wide.

Although it grew slower at first, Craigslist began the same year as e-Bay. That service now serves almost six hundred cities in fifty different countries.

If the cupboards are bare, you just need to enter your grocery order online in order to have groceries delivered to your home in most larger cities. You do not even have to go out to pick up the orders as they come right to your front door.

Of course, one of the most popular items to order online is the computer itself. Dell had manufactured and sold computers since the 1980s, however it did not start selling computers on its own website until 1996.

Whatever you are shopping for, you will very likely find it online at one of the online retailers. There are groceries and computers as well as used cars or livestock. All are on one of the many websites that are found online.

Online retailers have beefed up security measures to protect your credit or debit card and a growing number offers secure servers for your online shopping needs. Shopping online is a trend that is likely to continue to grow in the foreseeable future and the time may come that a large number of retail stores will be replaced by warehouses and shipping distribution points as online shopping continues to grow.