Online Shopping And E-Commerce

The online retail sales market share was exceptionally high in the United States who ranked second amongst the developed nations

Consumers are making purchases daily. There are a number of occasions and reasons prompting people to shop. Special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays all contribute to retail sales. Sustaining one’s daily life through purchase of food, clothing, personal hygiene products and cleaning products also contributes to the economy through commerce. How do most people like to shop? In recent years a new alternative to the traditional brick-and-mortar shopping, online shopping, has increased in popularity. “U.S. e-commerce sales grew from 72 billion U.S. dollars in 2002 to 228 billion U.S. dollars in 2010.” (“Online shopping,” n.d.,

Since 2000, there has been a double-digit growth in the e-commerce sector; statistics have shown that more than 80% of regular online shoppers have used Internet to purchase products or services, while 50% of the online population recorded to have shopped online more than once.

According to MarketLine, the world online retail market expanded by almost 18% in 2010 and is predicted to reach close to $435 billion in sales. The market is expected to reach a 90% growth by 2015 and exceed $827 billion in sales. Listed in an article “Ecommerce Growth Statistics”, the average amount spent by each consumer is expected to rise from $1,207 per year to $1,738 per person by 2016. That is a significant increase. That shows that people prefer to shop online than going to the actual store in today’s society. Shoppers will spend on an average of $327 billion online shopping in 2016, which is about 45% from $226 billion in 2012. It is very evident that consumers will drive ecommerce into the future; especially e-retail. In just a few years, purchases online will be more profitable than ever, with others products and services available to purchase such as mobile and social allowing consumers to shop to their convenience. For retailers and

Amazon and eBay attracted the most unique visitors each month to their global e-commerce sites. Forrester Research Inc. estimates that the global online population will be 2.32 billion in 2014. Online shoppers have more options than ever before. Used, hard to find items, and collectables are more accessible thru online shopping. Online shoppers no longer need to drive from one store to the next to find the best deal, and there is no need to stand in long lines making shopping online fast, easy and enjoyable.

Online purchasing is becoming more and more practical thing for contemporary customer. It is explained by high internet penetration in every country, lower cost than in retail network, door to door delivery. Internet plays an important role nowadays; therefore it creates a new market, which sometimes is quite difficult to measure. Online shopping is different from the B&M shopping due to the fact that there is no physical presence of goods, from other standpoint internet is able to sell way more services and motivation and decision making process directly connected to the feedbacks.

In 1979, Michael Aldrich gave birth to an idea called online shopping. This idea is a form of electrical commerce in which buyers can directly sell to their consumers without any help of an intermediary and this communication would happen electronically. This simple idea has turned into a trillion dollar industry making it possible for the average Joe to order something online and get it delivered to his/her door step from the seller, eliminating the need to go to a shopping mall to buy new things and overcoming the geographic limits. Nowadays, shopping can be the in the comfort of one’s home making this activity not to be obligated with going to a mall. Also it has had huge impacts in our society, economy and us humans. The online shopping industry has changed the world in drastic measures some good and some bad, nonetheless we continue to shop online increasing the usage and dependency. We as the people have made innovative advances in shopping, we use online shopping in which one can get anything one desires delivered right to their door step with a use of a computer or even a phone. The social impact of this new age of technology has been tremendous and also the different strategies used by the online retailer to convince the public to buy more.

The idea behind this study is of great significance because e-commerce (online shopping) has grown tremendously since the turn of the century. It has shaped the way people do shopping for the most part.

The trend toward shopping using the Internet is growing faster than expected (Cramer, 2014). Since Internet has become popular medium for people to shop, more companies then launched online shopping platform. With this new platform, they were able to do sales directly to their customer.

Online shopping is a modern concept which has grown in popularity with the rapid global growth in e-commerce. Apparently, many customers are attracted to this new concept of shopping because of the various benefits and offers of the internet. Online shoppers can enjoy the opportunity to shop at any time whenever convenient using an electronic device without the pressure of going to the traditional brick-and-mortar stores. It also allows browsing through seemingly never-ending options for merchandise or products not available in local stores and can let customers evaluate the different online stores to make comparison between items and products, their brands and prices which is difficult and time-consuming

E-commerce is platform of communication through internet that takes place between companies and their customers (Whiteley, 2000). The e-commerce provides various services such online shopping, online bank and E-enterprise which are also emerging trends on their own. Online shopping is one biggest service of e-commerce which allows consumers to buy, order and view goods and service on online through their gadget, anywhere they are (Dennis et al. 2004; McCormick, 2009). Based on fact that world is connected through internet and the new generation prefer to utilise technology than do things in manual process (going physical retail). .

According to the LA Times (2014), 3 billion people have access to the internet. Facebook reaches 250 million users and as I demonstrated in Chapter 5, 95 million people are shopping online in the USA alone. The most amazing thing is that these numbers will only get bigger because most of the world still has to get online. These figures only represent 60% of the world population who are using the internet. Still, the experts say that worldwide e-commerce sales are growing by 19% a year and will represent US$1.4 trillion by the end of 2015. In the USA those sales are increasing by 10% every year and this will be the trend as people understand what they save in effort, gas, and how there is more variety online than in the stores. Furthermore, it is true that more than 80% of the online population has used the internet to purchase something, and more than 50% of the online population has shopped online more than once. In every region of the world people are understanding how easy, fast and efficient it is to shop online and they like this convenience and the safety. There is no reason why part of this phenomenal growth should not be yours.

Nowadays with the ever rapid development and increasing popularity of the information technology, shopping on the internet has been a fashion especially among the youngsters. But some people think brick and mortal stores are better than online stores. In my opinion, online shopping has more benefits in modern capitalist countries. Although traditional shopping can buy merchandise directly, online shopping is not only more convenient for people to buy it, but it is easier to compare goods than traditional shopping, and it also promotes economic development and promotes the development of other industries.

Online shopping is slowly but surely dismantling the way Americans have shopped for decades. Ease of use, lack of annoying salesmen and a lower price point are all reasons consumers are shifting from the other mediums of shopping. Online shopping, over wise known as E-Commerce is when shoppers search the internet for the best prices or stores that offer the best online shopping experience and have the items they want shipped directly to their front doors. Some strengths and weaknesses include:

Online commerce was introduced to consumers in the mid-1990’s, and in the years since, it has grown exponentially. It started out virtually nonexistent and has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Nearly every retail sector has entered online commerce; clothing, electronics, home, health and grooming items, even food and groceries are starting to gain traction online. Online commerce sites rival traditional brick and mortar stores such as Walmart and Target, as well as other big-box stores. As online retailers such as Amazon continue to expand, many brick and mortar stores have been making their way online, indicative of an increasing movement towards online commerce. With more than 80% of the online population having made an online