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!!