Advantages of Online Shoping
All sorts of people shop online for all kinds of reasons.
First, there is the convenience of being able to shop 24 hours a day for any type of product imaginable. The ability to shop from home allows many people who have trouble getting to real world shops such as elderly or disabled people or others with transport or mobility issues to still purchase the products and services they need. Many people also have trouble attending shops during their opening hours, such as those that work the same hours as shop opening times, mothers with young children and no one to mind them.
There are several advantages to shopping online, the first one being the ability to shop at a time that is convenient to you, not just when the shops are open. The second advantage of shopping online is that goods are often cheaper as the seller does not have the costs of running a shop and having to pay wages to salespeople, insurance and all of the other running costs of a real world business. Online shopping can also be a lot more comfortable than real world shopping, you do not have to deal with the weather - you won't get rained on for instance shopping online.
A huge advantage of shopping online is that you have the opportunity to compare as many products and prices as you want without having to spend the time and money to travel between several different shops. You will also be able to read reviews that have been written by other people who have purchased the item you are considering; you will be able to find out about the item from a genuine user not just the salesperson. Finally you will be able to find and buy products all over the world not just in your local area - this makes purchasing hard to find items a lot easier.
The main disadvantage of shopping online is that you have to pay shipping costs and have to wait for the items you purchased to be shipped and delivered. (This could take several weeks if you have purchased a product from overseas, and the costs of shipping may outweigh any savings you made on the purchase price.) You will not be able to purchase an item you need to use immediately online.
Another disadvantage is that you have to buy the item relying purely on a photograph and description, you cannot feel or see the item you want to buy. It can sometimes be quite hard to judge the size or quality of some items purely from a photograph. The final disadvantage of shopping online is that it is much harder and takes longer to return faulty goods; you will have to repack it and pay to ship it back to the seller. It can literally take weeks to exchange a faulty product purchased online.
Advantages
Convenience includes the overall ease of finding a product, time spent on shopping, minimization of overall shopping effort (Schaupp & Belanger, 2005). Online shopping allows consumers to shop at the convenience of their own home, and to save traveling time to retail stores and spend their time on other important tasks and hobbies. Researchers identify convenience as a 'fundamental objective' related to online shopping (Schaupp & Belanger, 2005). This is relevant to 72% of online shoppers' claim that they would rather surf online than go to retail store to attain information about a product (Lokken et al., 2003). According to a study, 72% of online shoppers chose convenience over privacy (Bhatnagar, Misra, & Rao, 2000). In addition to ease of finding products online and shopping time reduction, consumers can shop without time limitation with 24-hr access at their convenience because the World Wide Web never closees. Lokken mentions 24-hr access as a beneficial characteristic of online shopping (Lokken et al., 2003). Also, consumers can exchange information online through chatting and discussion forums to help them make wise consumer decisions.
Online shopping benefits both the society as a whole and individuals. The society can save human resources when consumers help themselves by browsing freely online instead of asking for assistance from vendors. In addition, consumers are freed from the pressure to buy from the vendors and can spend more time to make wise purchase decisions. But it is important that Web sites have good product descriptions because it is one of the significant condition that satisfy consumers (Limayem, M., Khalifa, M., & Frini, A., 2000).
Consumers desire a variety of products because they look for the right product that will fully satisfy them. There is infinite variety of products available online because online shopping allows consumers to browse through products that are made all around the world without geographical boundaries.
With the online tools that enable product comparison, consumers can compare product prices and features to make a better decision with less effort. More details are included in solutions section. |
