E-commerce may be the future, but if my recent experience is anything to go by, it certainly isn't the present. TIME DIGITAL sent me off to buy three semi-luxury items from European websites to gauge whether buying online is more efficient or cheaper than buying in local stores. The answer, sadly, is that it is neither. Drawbacks in search engine technology and website design can make online, pan-European shopping a maddeningly frustrating experience.

Take my attempt to buy a tie made by Hermes, the French luxury goods manufacturer, over the Internet — an effort which took more than five hours over three days. Search engine Altavista turned up 788 recent sites with the key words Hermes and tie. Its "ask a question service" answered the query "Where can I buy a Hermes tie?" by asking me if I meant "How do I tie a knot, or build a fire, or cook with a campstove, or purify drinking water?" I tried to find an official Hermes site but Hermes.com, .net, .org and .fr were all used by other organizations. (In fact Hermes does not plan to launch a website until next year.) The very best I could manage after two hours of searching Altavista and similar sources was a phone number for a shop in Texas.

So, I decided to try a virtual visit to one of Paris' biggest department stores. Printemps's novel new shopping service www.webcamer.com works like this: Salespeople called Webcamers dash around the store on roller skates carrying a video camera, a computer and a mobile phone. The online shopper makes requests via the computer and then the Webcamer roves around the store pointing the camera at interesting merchandise. Great concept, but in practice — let's just say there are still a few bugs in the system:

DAY ONE: I log on during posted opening hours but am told the store is closed. I waste 15 minutes clicking in vain before I remember that Britain is working but May 24 is a holiday in France.

DAY TWO: I sign in at 2 p.m. and am told I am eighth in line. I wait almost 40 minutes before I reach the front of the queue (expensive when you are paying British Telecommunications' local call rate of over 6 [cents] per minute). Finally I am greeted by "Web." I ask — in English — if the store stocks Hermes ties. "I'll go and check," she replies in English and off she skates. A bored clerk swims into view. "No sorry we do not stock them," types Web.

I decide to be flexible and am shown via the Web camera a selection of designer ties. I choose a yellow Dior tie for $84. Web gives me a three-digit purchase code to enter. I say goodbye to my cyberclerk, enter the code...and my computer crashes. I reboot and rush back, only to be confronted with a message saying, "You are seventh in line." I send an e-mail asking if I can complete the transaction directly. Out of luck. The Printemps e-mail system is down. I dial back at 5:25 p.m. London time and am told I am sixth in line. Then, 45 minutes later, "Wide," my new Webcamer, announces the store is closing. "HELP PLEASE DON'T GO," I type frantically. Wide's efforts to help fail and, much to my dismay, I am asked to return early the next day.

DAY THREE: I log onto the system before the official opening time and finally my order goes through. Was it worth the trouble? Later, I try to buy the same Dior tie at Selfridges, the London department store, the old fashioned way, but the new collection won't arrive until July. The tie will be priced almost identically to what I paid Printemps. Shipping, though, normally adds roughly another $8 to the tab. And there is the not insignificant matter of the around $19 in telephone charges I racked up while making the online purchase.

Next, I try to buy champagne direct from the Champagne region of France, thinking I might find a bargain. Yahoo has a champagne section but not a single one where I could buy bubbly. So, I spend another hour in an attempt to hunt down a website for Perrier Jouet champagne, my favorite. No joy. Eventually I type in www.champagne.com and arrive at a Moet and Chandon site. The Moet site has a link for people wanting to buy champagne but it lands me at an American online wine store. In frustration I go back to Yahoo to find any French wine merchant who can help me. I try to order from a French site called ChateauOnline (www.chateauonline.fr) but when it figures out that I am in London it refuses the order and sends me to the British site www.chateauonline.com. In the end I order six bottles of a champagne I have never heard of from a French site, www.rouge-blanc.com, paying an undisclosed amount of French tax.

Oddbins, one of Britain's largest wine merchants, said it looks like I probably saved around $3.20 a bottle. However, with the six-bottle minimum order costing me $109 I should have been charged around $37 in VAT and duty. Consumers buying alcohol abroad are supposed to pay Britain's 17.5% VAT in advance and pay $3.40 per liter in excise duty (which itself is susceptible to VAT). So far no one has asked me for the fees, but they can be demanded weeks afterward with a hefty handling charge added.

Next on my list is Belgian chocolates. Leonidas has a website (www.leonidas.com), but there seems to be no way to order anything. After about three hours of searching I turn up Burie's website (www.belcho.be/burie) which requires a minimum order of one kilogram for $75. I fill out the form and push the submit button. Nothing happens. I push again. Still nothing. I push a third time and then have a horrible thought: perhaps I have just ordered three kilograms of chocolates. I send off a panicky e-mail but get no response. There is no contact number on the site. I wait and worry. Happily, only one box arrives. Would I do it again? My office is just three minutes walk from Crown Chocolates, which produces "Belgian-style" chocolates and does not require a minimum order.