Abstract: An electronic pre-shopping system and method, for an on-line retail outlet and/or an electronic portal to various online retail outlets is provided. The system and method provides the consumer the option of pre-shopping for a gift item from an on-line retail outlet. The system and method provides the consumer the capability of accessing the retail outlet website, selecting a gift item from the website, selectively extracting from a website page the gift item product retail information, associating the gift item with future special occasion of a recipient of the gift item, storing the gift item product information along with the recipient special occasion information into a database, securing payment for the gift item, and delivering the gift item to the recipient within the time period required for the special occasion. The system further provides the consumer the with a user interface that provides the consumer the option of paying for the gift item immediately or at a predetermine date in the future.