Online shopping is becoming more and more popular each year
as people embrace the convenience, selection, and low prices available when
shopping online. In this article I speak to some of the pros and cons of online
shopping.
There is something to be said for walking into a physical
store and being able to see, touch, and easily ask questions about a product.
One could argue that brick and mortar shopping is a more engaging experience,
often filled with background music of some sort, along with the sights and
sounds of other customers and clerks available to provide assistance when
needed. Different products can be compared side by side with very little
effort. One benefit of brick and mortar shopping is its organization, which
allows one to locate the right department and the right shelf pretty easily.
Everything the store offers is made available via a layout of straight-forward,
logical departments. Online sites provide an organizational layout and text
search capability, but this different way of locating a product of interest is
one online shopping difference that takes some getting used to. Other benefits
of brick front shopping is being able to get out of the house, exercise a bit,
breathe some outdoor air and avoid cabin fever (this type of activity was quite
important in the winter when I lived in Chicago).
People that are cautious in nature might find certain features
of online shopping a bit hard to get used to, such as getting acclimated to
what would be the equivalent of searching for merchandise with tunnel blinders
that only permit a very narrow view of what is directly ahead of one's eyes.
Brick and mortar stores are physically arranged to make it more probable that
certain items will be seen more than others. Online stores also provide focus
on certain products over others. Most websites contain product descriptions,
but the descriptions can be either too general or too detailed, making it
difficult to compare two or more products on their features. If the shopper has
a question that is appropriate for a human being such as a clerk in a store,
where does the online customer go to ask the question? There is something lost
in not having an informed person available to provide an immediate answer. Many
popular online shopping sites now provide customer reviews-independent reviews
provided by customers that have bought each product. These reviews go a long
way toward providing enough detailed information about a product so one can
determine whether or not to purchase it.
In the USA online shopping malls and websites address the
limitations found in the online shopping process by offering near enough to a
no-questions-asked return policy to ensure the happiness of the online
customer. Even so, one downside of online shopping is having to wait to obtain
the product, depending on whatever mode of shipping is selected. If a product
needs to be refunded or returned for whatever reason, there's the inconvenience
of returning the product. This often involves a phone call and trip to the
local post office, after which one waits again to either receive a replacement
or refund. Compare this to just running the item and receipt back to a local
brick front store and having either a refund or an exchanged product in hand
within a few minutes.
Let's talk about security. In a physical store, cash can be
used, and if a debit or credit card is used the shopper gets to see who processes
his or her card. Also, one is usually not required to provide personal
information such as a name and physical address. Not so with online shopping,
as the item must be addressed and delivered to a person at an address. Cash
cannot be used online, so what entity processes the card and captures the
personal information over the web? And how well is the personal information
protected? One way to greatly reduce risk when shopping online is to use
virtual credit card numbers. These numbers are provided by credit card issuers
such as Citi and Discover, and can be used only once, so even if the credit
card information is captured by some other entity during the transaction, it
cannot be used to complete a second purchase. I use virtual credit card numbers
when I shop online, and I highly recommend this practice.
Let us look at the benefits of shopping online. If the
four-wheeled vehicle in one's driveway is expensive to gas up, then it's an
obvious plus to be able to shop the virtual market and save transportation
costs. It is also a "greener" arrangement-computers emit little or no
carbon even when powered. For those who find it tiring to deal with crowds,
there are none in cyberspace, and no lines to wait in during checkout. The
magical online domain has no weather to hinder one, either-all shopping is done
within a sheltered environment, safe from inclement weather. And there's no
need to worry about keeping one's children together and in sight when online
shopping. But perhaps the best feature of all is the cost savings that can be
realized online. Online items can more often that not be purchased and shipped
for substantially less, because the price doesn't include any overhead costs
associated with having a physical brick and mortar store. In most cases there
is also no sales tax either, unless the merchant maintains some type of
physical presence in the state where the item is purchased. For example,
Amazon.com only charges sales tax on orders that are shipped to Kansas, North
Dakota, New York or Washington, and Overstock.com only charges sales tax on
orders that are shipped to Utah. To sweeten the deal, many merchants offer
special online coupons, coupon codes and promotional codes that provide
additional discounts.
As an example of the money that can be saved when shopping
online, I bought a "Cuisinart Prep 11 Plus" food processor and used
the online comparison shopping engine at Shopzilla.com to find the best deal,
which was at Etronics.com for $172 with no sales tax and free shipping. A local
Sears store had it listed at $199.99 and would have charged about $16 in sales
tax for a total of $216. In this particular case I saved $44 (20%) shopping
online and using Shopzilla to put online stores in competition for my business.
And it only took me about 10 minutes of effort. With the advent of cheaper
computing and increasing levels of online competition, people are generally
becoming used to accessing the world through the eyes of cyberspace. So it is
the coming thing, and a tide that is not likely to be turned. We as a society
have adapted to other significant changes over time, such as the advent and
convenience of air travel, trains and automobiles over horses, and online
shopping is yet another paradigm shift we will adapt to.Visit https://www.stock4less.com/
In summary, when looking at the pros and cons of online
shopping, the pros outweigh the cons, especially for items that are widely
available and for which the best price is being sought. Shoppers save time and money
buying what they need online and virtual store owners can run their businesses
on far less overhead. The fact that the pros outweigh the cons is evident when
one looks at the sharp increases in online shopping that have occurred on a
global basis over the past few years.
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