Shop Safely on the Net: Virtual Mail (BSL / subtitles)

1 Jan 2003

Safely navigating the new virtual high street.

It might be hard to remember for most of us now, but online shopping was once a new and bewildering - even frightening - new world. Yes, there were bargains to be had, but the online high street was largely unregulated, scams were common, and in a highly competitive environment, even honest traders could quickly disappear.
This short public information 'filler', made by the Central Office of Information for the Dept of Trade & Industry, offers a few simple tips to help anxious consumers 'shop safely on the net'. Rather disappointingly, it imagines the web - still only a few years old - not as some bewilderingly alien landscape conjured from the outer limits of science fiction, but as an antiseptic, semi-translucent but otherwise pretty much familiar shopping centre, through which slightly dazzled shoppers wander, eagerly browsing window displays.
Recommendations for navigating this consumer wonderland include looking for a real address and phone number, and printing a record of your order - what's notably missing is any advice on what consumers can do if their purchases do go astray.

This version includes ESL signing.

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From the collection

How We Shopped

From the high street to the information superhighway: shopping undergoes a makeover.

The 1980s heralded a sea change in the way we shopped - and what we shopped for. Reflecting the growing impact of new technologies, from the arrival of credit cards to the consumer electronics boom and ultimately the internet shopping age, this collection also journeys through the changing face of our high streets into the 1990s and beyond. This is the era of out-of-town supermarkets and supersized shopping malls muscling in on the traditional town centre trade. Many smaller villages faced the loss of local shops entirely, but they didn't give up without a fight. Alongside these existential threats, local news reports investigate such emerging issues as convenience food labelling, shoplifting and the campaign to 'Buy British' as domestic manufacturing continued its long and painful decline. Glimpses of long-lost chain stores, brands and products that once dominated everyday life across the UK may inspire more than a whiff of nostalgia. Yet this collection also tells a story of continuity: despite the all-powerful internet, we do still seem to want to come together to shop in the 'real world', not least at Christmas, and those seasonal shopping moments are here waiting to be unwrapped

33 videos in this collection

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Newcastle upon Tyne
1999

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Shoplifting Is On The Increase

Chelmsford
1983

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Dog: Dog Days

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Post-Christmas Sales

Belfast
1984

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Toy Fair 1980

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Charm School

St Austell
1989

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Round Robin: Think British

Norwich
1982

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Debden Village Shop Re-opens

Debden
1982

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Anderson and McAuley Department Store

Belfast
1986

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Credit Card Shopping in Northampton

Northampton
1986

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Villagers Open Community Shop

Stetchworth
1984

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St George's Market

Belfast
1980

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Shopping Centre Santas

Belfast
1984

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Yvonne Aston is the New Outsize Model

St Ives
1985

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Chinese Supermarket in Nottingham

Nottingham
1985

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Big Night Out Shopping

Belfast
1985

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E Numbers in Everyday Popular Products

Norwich
1985

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Battle Goes On Over Sunday Trading

Cambridge
1986

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Counterfeit Goods

Hornchurch
1987

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CD Video is the Future

Belfast
1988