1 AVOID MESSING UP

Don’t fall at the first hurdle by forgetting the date. The reminder service at www.mars2venus.com is free and by e-mail and will alert you two weeks before D-Day. Next, you must understand what not to buy: while flowers and chocolate are the ultimate cliché, lingerie can make a decent gift if you avoid the pitfalls. The Men’s Guide to Buying Lingerie at www.breasttalk.co.uk advises on what women look for (quality, comfort, sex appeal) and what they don’t (anything with dangly bits).

There is further insight at www.pressies4princesses.co.uk, which lists “Ten Mistakes Men Make Buying Presents”. Household gifts are a no-no: remember you are choosing a present for her, not for yourself.

2 WHERE WOMEN SHOP

To understand your loved one, it’s crucial to know where she likes to shop. The elegant www.theluxurycandlecompany.com sells the kind of candles women give to female friends because they really want one themselves but can’t justify the extravagance (from £18).

Then try www.shinyshiny.tv, a girls’ guide to gadgets. The hand- cranked emergency mobile phone charger for £5, or an iPod-shaped pillow at £9.62 (it doubles as a radio and has an iPod socket) may already have caught her eye. Many women buy sexy but comfortable underwear from www.figleaves.com, and it’s hard to go wrong here. Likewise, buying flattering swimwear can go down well. The Swimwear Anxiety Zone at www.landsend.co.uk divides styles into those that Define Waist, Lengthen Legs or Enhance Bust.

3 INSPIRATION ENGINE

Tell eBay’s interactive present picker (tinyurl.com/yc2l3p) what your loved one is like and potential gifts are wheeled into view. It suggests that a fairly arty but extravagant and sophisticated 25-36-year-old lover might like an elegant teacup, shoes, or a gold watch. Flowers may be old hat, but you could also “say it with flour” with the online baker www.bakinboys.co.uk. What about a box of 12 Truly Madly Chocolate muffins for £7.50? And don’t forget the packaging; for women the presentation is almost as important as the gift itself. Visiting www.thewrappingco.com could save you stress with scissors and Sellotape with its range of gift boxes, and its Daisy Gift Bag (£2.36) is reusable.

4 PROFESSIONAL HELP

If you’ve exhausted every avenue, call in the experts. Register with the personal shopping service www.savefinder.com and e-mail your shopping query. All previous questions and answers are searchable, and anonymous. Best of all, there are sections for hard-to- please girlfriends and unusual gifts for wives. If she’s into music, have the independent record store Rough Trade (www.roughtrade.com) send her a selection tailored to her tastes. For example, £126 (plus £30 sign-up fee) will buy three CD albums a month for three months and includes listening notes.

When all else fails, have someone else do the legwork. Lizzie Edwards is a personal shopper who will scour the shops so you don’t have to (www.babetstyle.co.uk). If you can afford her £280 half-day fee she will provide a Trinny and Susannah-style makeover.

5 LAST MINUTE SALVATION

If D-Day is already looming fast, opentable.com may redeem you. Here you can make “free, instant, and confirmed” restaurant reservations at short notice, although it is largely London-centred. Alternatively there’s www.toptable.co.uk, which prides itself on the number and quality of restaurants covered across the UK (all bar one of Gordon Ramsay’s, for example), and you get a free meal if you make six bookings.

Balloons are the new flowers, enthuses www.skyhi.co.uk, and this site will deliver a bouquet of them in a box for £29 the same day.

Sold out doesn’t always mean sold out for live events. So-called “production seats” sometimes magically appear at the last minute and www.livenation.co.uk will find them for you.

6 AND FOR HIM...

Men need presents too, and a made-to-measure outfit garners maximum appreciation for minimum effort. Based in Bangkok, www.ravistailor.com claims not to use child labour, and has a free phone number from the UK. It promises to turn round an order within two weeks — and all for less than you would spend in Marks & Spencer. Business shirts cost from £21, and suits from £112.

Chris Theodoulou, director of www.ecvaleting.co.uk, is a man with a van who takes the sting out of a chore by offering a car-cleaning service from £20-£95.

Or how about packing your man off on an adventure holiday with www.responsibletravel.com? Packages include learning to run a dog sled team in Canada from £711 excluding flights and scuba diving in Sulawesi, “the best diving in the world”, from £249 excluding flights.

Now that wasn’t too painful, was it.