The answer to the first question is definitely YES. In North America, nearly 20 million people shopped online in December 2000, spending a total of $6.1 billion. This is almost the same amount as online shoppers in the Asia-Pacific region spent in the whole year ($7 billion), but in Asia the market is growing much faster, by about 150% a year. More and more people are realizing that with online shopping, they can: