Online Retail Shopping “Advantages & Disadvantages”

You truly do not understand the full benefits of shopping online until you step foot in a retail store. There are crowds of people to fight through, lines to wait in while purchasing your item, and it almost always seems like you have to jump from store to store to find the item you were looking for. Shopping online provides a sense of comfort and ease while purchasing exactly what you want, when you want it from your home. There are several benefits you will get from shopping at your home as oppose to running all over the city.

As per the current market study online sales are expected to hit $360 billion by 2015- up from about $121 billion in 2011-according to The Boston Consulting Group.

Impressive as the numbers are, there's another set of statistics that's even more striking: Nearly one-third of the online shoppers in China fell prey to fraudulent websites during that period, costing them $4.7 billion, according to the China Electronic Commerce Association.

So if we discuss then there are both advantages and disadvantages in online shopping.

So let’s discuss what the advantages of online shopping are.

Advantages of Online Shopping: 

1.  Low Prices: Online shopping store can reduce overhead costs in a variety of ways, which means a lower price for you. In fact in a market study it is found that online prices to be 11 to 16 percent less than offline market prices.
2.  Price Comparisons: When you visit a store, you most likely have to settle for whatever price the vendor has placed on a particular item. Not so with online shopping - you have the ability to compare prices from hundreds of different vendors.
3.  Incredible Convenience: In comparison to a offline store which works for fixed hours, online shoppers can choose anytime of the day or night to open the web and shop. This is especially useful for moms with small children, people that are home-bound, or simply in times of inclement weather.
4.  More saving With Online Coupons: Many times shoppers can save even further with an online coupon or coupon code. According to a market study 75 percent of online shopper said they were able to find better discount offers and sales online, as compare to shopping through a catalog or traditional retail merchant. Online retailers may issue a button or text link that will apply an automatic savings to your order, or they may issue a specific coupon code to be entered at checkout.
5.  Infinite choice: Shelf space in an offline store is limited, which means that your variety of goods is limited. Not so with an online store. Plus, if you don't see what you want in one store online, you can simply move on to the next one - you've got the power to do that.
6.  Environmental Benefits: Recent studies showing that shopping online leads to reduced fuel consumption and air pollution, because so much of our car travel is dedicated to shopping. Again shopping online reduces the need for print catalog and excess packaging.

Disadvantages of Online Shopping:

The Internet has been praised again and again for the ease it provides people who want to buy and sell things online. Online shopping has also been widely been criticized for being very insecure. Even with the latest encryption algorithm implemented, hackers still manage to find a way to steal your data. Yes, shopping online is very simple and straight forward, not to mention tempting, but it also gets people into lots of trouble especially those who are not aware of the disadvantages of online shopping. This is why it's advised that you familiarize yourself with online stores and how they protect their data.

A recent survey showed that a majority of online shoppers were not aware of various hacker attacks, phishing scams, and how it affected them. Not knowing how to keep you safe is the biggest disadvantage of online shopping. You also don't know if a store is really reliable, and if you will really be shipped the goods you have paid for. Many times the store is just a scam put up to gather people's credit card data and social security numbers. These types of scams have been documented again and again and yet there is no way to know for sure if an online store is really genuine or not.

Another one of the disadvantages of online shopping is you can't really know for sure what you are buying is really want you want to buy. Unlike a conventional store, you can't see and feel first hand what you are purchasing. You need to just take the word of the description of the product which is usually cleverly crafted by online stores to make it sound appealing to people. This is probably one of the biggest disadvantages of online shopping that turns many people off.

So I can suggest you to go for online shopping if you are well aware of the shopping site and you can simply browse the web to get feedback about the shopping site where you are planning to shop, definitely you will get a clear idea about the site and can shop safely. Happy online shopping!!

SEO: Internet Marketing Strategy “How to plan and what to implement”.

Internet marketing can attract more people to your website, increase customers for your business, and enhance branding of your company and products. Many of you start an online business with the expectation of earning huge profit without even realizing that you should build an internet marketing strategy in order to achieve a place in the global markets.

How to plan an internet marketing strategy

In order to develop an internet marketing strategy, at first you need to determine who your target customers are. Then, you need to decide whether you will offer your own or sell someone else’s product and service. It is also quite important to decide the competitive advantage of the product that you’re planning to offer.

You can follow below mentioned steps in order to develop a unique online marketing strategy.

• Research online: First of all you need to do an online research to find out what strategies are employed by your competitors. It will help you to analyze their strengths and weaknesses as you’ll have to target what they’re not able to offer. You need to search how you can advertise your product to your target customers. Therefore, you need to find out what the main concerns of your target customers are and where they usually visit in order to find the products.

• Develop a strategy: After doing online research you have to develop your strategy keeping in view what to offer so as to attract your target visitors to your website and then turning them to customers. Make sure you calculate how much you can afford. You need to use an internet marketing strategy according to your affordability.

Types of online marketing strategies

Follow the below mentioned guided marketing strategies so as to achieve you target.  

1. Search Engine Optimization: Search Engine Optimization helps for choosing appropriate keywords and Meta tags, and helps to increase PR of your webpage and increases visibility in the result page of popular search engines.
2. Affiliate Program: It is a form of online advertising where advertisers place campaigns with a potentially large number of small (and large) publishers, who are only paid media fees when traffic to the advertiser is garnered, and usually upon a specific measurable campaign result. Affiliates are a great way to spread your message and build your list – while also supporting your sales of products or programs.
3. Update your Website/blog: Web site is outdated? Then it’s time to hire a website developer to update your entire site. Most costumers will be attracted if you will be having a good visible website, so first impression matters most while designing your website.
4. Social network campaign: Since 2008 Google has controlled an estimated 69% of the online advertising market. As per internet study almost all costumers use social network for connecting with friends and for marketing purpose. So if you are making a good platform on social media then it will be very easy for you to reach to your targeted costumers through social media campaign.
5. Connect with a new joint venture partner: If you are in the starting stage of your business then it will be good for you if you will establish a great partnership with a new strategic alliance or joint venture partner. Someone that you feel can really pull you and help you in a big way – while you can do the same for them.
6. Pay per click Advertising campaign: Pay -per- click gives a huge kick start to your online marketing. Whether it’s Google AdWords or Facebook ads – they convert brand new prospects onto your list and you can target very specific groups of people searching what you have to offer. Yes, you have to pay for the traffic – but – it’s definitely worth it in the long run. 

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