This holiday season retailers are doing their best to pull shoppers away from their computer monitors and into their stores.

“Retail in general is getting more aggressive, increasing their sales [discounts],” Paul Scharfenkamp, a J.C. Penney store manager, said.

Kenneth Stone, professor of economics, said the discounts are partly a response to an “over-storing of America.”

“A few years ago, we had five square feet of retail space per person in the U.S., but now we have 20 square feet,” Stone said. “There are too many stores and not enough support.”

Some stores have also changed their store policy to allow customers to return online purchases at retail outlets.

The sale events and updated return policies level out the playing field between traditional stores and online stores.

“I am planning to buy a few things on Best Buy’s Web site and eBay, but I’d definitely go into a store and look around if they had big discounts,” said Alex Quintanilla, junior in biology.

Although online commerce totals about 100 billion dollars, compared to the almost $3.5 trillion for stores, Internet business is growing dramatically. It’s growing between 15 and 20 percent annually, Stone said.

“The overreaching factor is convenience. You can find things easily and then just have it shipped to the right person,” he said. “Sometimes it can be a chore to try to find the products in stores.”

Amy Tesdahl, freshman in pre-business, plans to buy her dad golf clubs online.

“I’ve shopped on places like eBay before, and I’ve been able to [find] people who give really good service,” she said.

Scott Wegener, sophomore in mechanical engineering, agreed, but he only buys from official store Web sites, not online auctions.

“It’s fast and it’s easy. I can tell them where to send it and not have to worry about anything,” he said.

“It’s all about the trade-offs. Online gives you simplicity and a huge selection, but you have to pay shipping and handling on top of the item cost,” Wegener said.

Despite the interest in Internet purchases, retailers won’t have to worry too much this holiday season due to the fact that many other students still like to do things the old-fashioned way for a variety of reasons.

Kevin Hathaway, freshman in general undergraduate studies, may buy things for himself online, but he never purchases presents online.

“It just takes the fun out of last minute shopping,” Hathaway said.

Alex Parrish, unlike Hathaway, does his shopping well before the mad rush, and still enjoys going to the stores.

“It’s nice because I don’t have to worry about shipping fiascoes or items suddenly being out of stock,” said Parrish, junior in management.

“I also try to make my gifts personal. That’s what Christmas is about,” he said.

“I want to go shop around, see something, and say, ‘Oh my god, that’s so my mom!'”

Stone said people are also cautious about having their credit card number stolen when they make online purchases.

Jozi Wehr, sophomore in pre-business, is one of these people.

“If they increased security, I would be more willing to shop over the Internet, but there isn’t a lot that I can get online that isn’t in the stores,” Wehr said. “I would rather go see the items. That way quality is guaranteed.”

Internet business will never take over traditional store business, Stone said.

The Ames J.C. Penney has not seen a negative impact from Internet commerce on its store sales.

“People are buying items online that the store does not carry,” Scharfenkamp said.

“They are not going online instead of coming to the store. They are going to the Internet instead of using the catalogues.”