? ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF ONLINE SHOPPING

Just year before, online shopping was not popular as it is today. But nowadays online shopping is the one of the best method considered for shopping. Now it allows the buyer to buy anything by just a click of mouse. Now online shopping offers a variety of products and services, as it allows us to buy clothing, airlines tickets, a car and even your grocery to shop. Websites like amazon.com, ebay.com are among the list of most popular websites being used these days.

This essay will discuss advantages; (comparison shopping and save time) and disadvantages; (additional costs and waiting time and insecure shopping). One of the main advantage of online shopping is; comparison shopping in which products can be compared and contrast on the basis of their prices and multiple outlets. Today everybody wants the freedom of choice, so the marketers have to present the variety of product to choose from.

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There are number of online shopping websites, for example ebay.

com, amazon.com, ozsale.com etc. that offer variety of products and services with different offers based on prices. This allows us the freedom of price flexibility and choice. So in that way, it makes easier to select and discard the product with his own choice. Many consumers like to explore before purchasing any particular product from different websites which offers different prices and different offers from other website at the same time. Comparison shopping affects the buyer’s trend to buy any product.

The trend of comparison shopping is influenced by the ‘dimensions of decision-making style’ of the consumers (Park, Y. A., & Gretzel, U. 2010). The comparison shopping also become beneficial for the buyer as it allows the consumer to save money as well. Another main advantage of the online shopping is that it saves time. Today’s in this fast pace world everybody expects the work to be done faster. So, if anybody have busy life who have no time to buy the grocery are using online shopping as a way to fulfill their basic needs. Online shopping doesn’t require visiting the shopping places as you can do online shopping by sitting at home or anywhere. Online shopping services are available to anyone throughout the day, which it allows us to use these services anytime of the day. Online shopping websites are available on every day of the year, public holidays as well.

So availability of online shopping makes it convenient for everyone to use. Online shopping is considered as a convenient method to find those things which are hard to find made it a ‘time saving method’ (Horrigan, J. 2008). The other most important disadvantage of the online shopping is the additional cost and waiting time that Company’s takes to deliver the product. . The additional cost for delivering the product is also an important reason why people used to buy from their local outlets. A product can take up to weeks to deliver the product which make it the most frustrating factor for online shopping. The online shopping can be frustrating factor for those who don’t have patience and time to wait. So it becomes better for the buyer to buy the product from local shops instantly. The price on online store is usually low but delivery charges of the product make the charges similar or higher than local outlets. The main disadvantage of online shopping is insecure shopping. Insecure shopping means the scams and frauds by gaining the personal and financial details of the buyers and utilize it in a bad way. If someone obtain your details regarding your personal and financial information, that can harm your personality (respect) and on other hand it can become a cause for the loss of the money.

Online shopping is widely used for shopping but has ‘worries about sending their financial details’ such as credit cards (Horrigan, J. 2008). There are number of scam and fraud websites that offer very attracting offers but websites like this can loot you. So scam websites make online shopping a chaos for the user. It can be concluded that online shopping have advantages but have disadvantages as well. Online shopping provides us variation that means comparison shopping but on other hand online shopping companies charge extra for delivering. It saves times on shopping but takes time on delivering. It is available every time but have insecurity of being scammed and looted. But in last it can be easily concluded that if buyer have time for waiting they can use online shopping from registered and legal website which can decrease the fear of online shopping frauds. So, it can be easily concluded that online shopping can be a best method for shopping.

REFERENCING
Horrigan, J. (2008). Online shopping. Pew Internet & American Life Project Report, 36. Lee, G. G., & Lin, H. F. (2005). Customer perceptions of
e-service quality in online shopping. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 33(2), 161-176. Lester, D. H., Forman, A. M., & Loyd, D. (2006). Internet shopping and buying behavior of college students. Services Marketing Quarterly, 27(2), 123-138. Park, Y. A., & Gretzel, U. (2010). Influence of consumers’ online decision-making style on comparison shopping proneness and perceived usefulness of comparison shopping tools. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 11(4), 342-354.