Online vs. Traditional Shopping the Tremendous Growth

Online vs. Traditional Shopping

The tremendous growth of the Internet over the past decade has given a significant boost to e-commerce and made online shopping a part of every-day experience of many people. However, since online shopping is still a relatively new phenomenon, and has its advantages as well as disadvantages, it has not yet realized its full potential. In this paper, I shall compare and contrast online and traditional retail shopping; look at some of the reasons that drives consumers to shop online and discuss which shopping experience is more satisfying.

The Advantages

Online shopping provides the convenience of shopping from the comfort of one's home 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- since online stores never close. It enables a customer to avoid braving the weather, the hassles of navigating traffic or trying to find parking places -- common requirements of traditional retail shopping.

Online shopping provides an enormous variety of products to choose from. The choice for an online shopper is much greater than in traditional shopping. Besides, specialized items and hard to find products are often available online.

The greater choice of products and the avoidance of brick and mortar expense for the cyber shops enable lower prices. New ways of selling and buying such as online auctions also contribute to low prices.

The Internet provides a much greater opportunity to research and compare the products before buying. Independent reviews and ratings are also available online.

There is less pressure on online shoppers to buy, as no salesperson is present to corner customers into buying something they don't really want. (Granovsky, 2000; Gilman, 1999)

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of online shopping is that there is no way for a 'reality check' in cyber space. An online shopper cannot see, touch, smell or taste a product before buying. It also does not provide the immediate gratification of possessing an item right away since there is usually a time-gap between buying a product online and its delivery.

The advantage of having a variety of choice can sometimes prove to be a disadvantage -- as an online shopper can be overwhelmed by the variety.

People who are not comfortable with computer use or the Internet may have difficulty in searching for the right product to buy.

An apparently less expensive product bought online may actually cost more after adding 'hidden' costs such as shipping and sales tax.

There are more security and privacy issues involved in online shopping, as the credit card and other private information such as e-mail addresses can be easily compromised when given out over 'insecure' websites. (Ibid.)

Which Shopping Experience is More Satisfying?