Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Shopping

Computer has brought about amazing revolution in the life around in the present day world. Its use, now it so seems, has become a necessity, and has created for itself indispensability. Internet has transformed the life and information technology. It is a melting pot of so many technologies which provides multi-media information facilities at low cost and great speed. The approaching trend on the internet now is online shopping. It is a process in which one can buy or sell items online via the internet. It has many advantages, but is not always the best way to shop.

Online shopping can be an easy alternative to leaving the house and going to a specific shop. It enables the elderly and the disables people to purchase the products and the services that they need. It also cuts a lot of hassle and energy of going to the store but may also result in an expensive buying due to shipping and handling charges. “Constant connectivity, contextual relevance, and a multi-screen world are changing both online and offline shopping” (Ramaswamy, 1). E bay and Amazon are the two most renowned and trusted websites for shopping online. Conventional shopping in the brick and mortar building entails leaving home to jostle with the traffic, crowds, and long queues. It erases the stress of having to wait in huge lines and dealing with the incompetent cashiers. Its ability to allow users to compare items at different stores online is incredibly straightforward and effective. Those retailers making use of tools from the net have a chance to stand out in today’s market.

Smart retailers need to be there when inspiration strikes consumers and they start searching for their purchases online. According to Sridhar Ramaswamy, it also enables the retailers to provide relevant suggestions to the consumers on what they want and recreate those shopkeeper conversations at scale (Ramaswamy, 1). Furthermore, it allows the user to shop at any given time but this may lead to a compromise in quality which leads to a hassle in returning the product through post office. With the access to YouTube and social networks like G+, people share their opinion on different products with a million of people, making it easy for the people to discuss products with friends and family. Google shopping now offers 360-degree imagery to some of their products to give consumers a better idea of what an item really looks like (Ramaswamy, 1). “Eye glasses retailer Warby Parker invites customers to mix and match frames against their photos” (Ramaswamy, 1).

When retailers adopt an innovative way to showcase their products to the users, it offers the customers to interact with the products at a different level, boosting their desire to buy that product. Prominent e-commerce websites such as Amazon, Crate and Barrel and American Eagle Outfitters are great tools for the bargain shoppers. The easiness to use a click of a mouse to compare the prices of similar items at different stores as well as their shipping costs saves a lot of time. There are a variety of discounts coupons and rebates available on different items which can help save a significant amount of money. Some websites such as Bizrate or Shopzilla, allow shoppers to compare product cost and customer satisfaction. It allows the users to read reviews by different buyers and select their purchases with additional information from satisfied customers.

Time is never an issue concerning online shopping as one can shop at any time and any place without having to worry about closing of the shops, inappropriate weather or transportation to the desired store. It allows us to shop 24*7 and involves no pollution shopping. Online shopping has allowed the consumers to get the maximum value out of every dollar that they spend, and to make them feel secure about their purchases (Ramaswamy, 1). It is a great way for the providers to promote their goods in the international market as it is easily accessible to anyone around the world. “Wal-Mart is building two new fulfillment centers to boost speed of delivery, while Amazon is increasing its seasonal warehouse staff by a whopping 70,000 employees, according to a Simon-Kucher press release” (Thau, 1).

Another convenience of online shopping is the ability to order products from around the world. Consumers are always suspicious about the functional mechanisms, processes, and the quality of products offered online (Kraeuter, 1). An important factor that acts as a foundation for the acceptance of E-commerce for the consumers is trust and it helps to reduce the uncertainty of different transactions in the electronic market. The exchange of information via the internet can have severe unpredictabilities which may include technological sources of errors or security gaps (Kraeuter, 45). Shoppers are not limited to products offered by local retailers because the retailers offer shipping to all almost all locations worldwide. According to an article published in Economic Times, “holiday shopping for Christmas and New Year in 2006 was estimated to be $20 billion” (Rajan, 1). This allows shoppers to find items which are a regional specialty of a particular area. The electronic shopping environment is customized according to the shoppers’ preferences and this may help transform the way they search for products and make decisions. The retailers in online shopping environments create retail interfaces consisting of highly interactive features (Trifts, 4).

Everything has both sides of discussions, and as for online shopping, its downside resides in quality issues. The images of the products are not enough to portray a clear picture of the product. Without able to see the product physically, one can’t be sure if the product is good enough to be purchased. One has to completely rely on the photographs and the description of the product available online. One can’t be sure about the condition in which the product may arrive and it almost takes a week to return that product and get a new one in return. Its biggest disadvantage is the security as many frauds occur with online shopping and therefore people have trust issues with using it. It has been widely criticized for being extremely insecure (Kraeuter, 45). Despite the use of latest security ware, hackers succeed in stealing data. The majority of online shoppers are unaware of various hacker attacks. Snopes and other cyber police sites issue warnings that the stores may be a scam put up to gather peoples credit card data and social security numbers (Kraeuter, 43). “The smooth and secure processing of an online transaction depends on the functioning of hardware and software as well as on the security of the data exchange services including the cryptographic protocols that are used” (Kraeuter, 45).

Online stores have goods with fixed products leaving no chance for negotiations. Online merchants sometimes sell an item for double the retail price. Many sellers zoom in for the items a lot, so the item has a chance at being smaller then its size shown online. The greatest rip is the inaccurate transactions that might result in no savings or additional expenses to the buyers. Technical issues may include the usage of computer, availability of internet, slow online connectivity, viruses and time zone differences (Perry, 1). The groups that run different stores in the online market seem more like competitors rather than players working on the same team. There is a price inconsistency as the retailers sell a product for one price in the store, and for another price on the web leading to an increased consumer frustration.

Problems with online shopping can be especially difficult to resolve if the seller is located in a foreign company. How the item is prices when it is converted to US dollars, whether the retailer will ship to other countries, the time it would to ship the order and applicable duties or taxes. Therefore, one should approach international online orders with great caution. One also needs to be aware of the various kinds of scams targeting online consumers. Extended service packages from retailers or third parties are usually overpriced and a retailer may also try to squeeze a profit from heavily discounted items by tackling on an extremely high shipping rate (Perry, 1). One may also become a target of phishing, an online fraud tactic which impersonates an entity for the purpose of tricking the consumer into giving up sensitive personal information.

This can be used to commit identity theft or to gain access to online accounts. During online shopping, there needs to be a secure server which initiates a secure connection between the browser and the intended server where the communication becomes encrypted. This is referred to as the Secure Socket Layer server (Perry, 1). The URL used with secure servers start with https, followed by www which is used by all servers. This helps avoid consumer frauds and secures information between the consumer browser and the server handling the shopping transaction.

In conclusion, online shopping with its definite advantages also has drawbacks and these if dealt with care and precaution can make this e-commerce a blessing, especially for those who are disabled and are unable to physically do their shopping on their own.