In the past decade, online shopping has boomed to a whole new level. You can now shop almost everything from books, clothes, electronics, furniture and home décor, groceries, even live plants. When the change is so big, it’s obvious that online shopping is bound to change our lives to the core.
While we had to go to the local markets or malls earlier, now you can stay at home and get everything done with a few clicks. The global computerization and high-speed internet assisted with innovative superior shopping experience has completely changed the way how we shop.
While a few years back, online shopping could have been looked upon as a giant step, it’s now so widespread that it has completely submerged within the routines of our lives. We can order groceries at home itself, which will be delivered within hours or at most the next day. In fact, if you don’t feel like fixing your dinner, you can even order any food of your choice online. If that’s not enough, you can even book local service providers like plumbers, electrician etc. online as well. Isn’t that quite a revolution in itself?
What made online shopping so popular?
The truth is online shopping offers consumers so many choices which a regular offline store can never fulfil, limited by the ability to display or even store in their inventories due to limited space. However, online retailers are not limited by such constraints. They can easily display a lot of goods online, without having to show them individually to their customers. Moreover, they don’t require as much space to store the products in a godown as is required in a showroom where display matters. Moreover, bigger e-commerce companies don’t even own everything they’re selling. They simply act as a medium between consumers and sellers, where unlimited number of sellers can sell unlimited products.
Also, if you have to go out to shop, you have to spend money on transport and face the weather (rainy, sunny, cold) and even walk all around until you can find the desired product. On the other hand, you can simply make use of search options to locate your desired product within a few minutes, and compare it with thousands of other products and offerings. Moreover, for those who find it difficult to spare time to go out to shop, online shopping is a savior. They can browse and shop during lunch hours, or whenever they get a little free time, time even at night. You don’t need to bother yourself with hassles of regular shopping like opening hours, uncooperative staff, finding parking spot, traffic, bad weather or hundreds of other issues associated. A big plus, you can even order internationally for products that aren’t even available in your country. It certainly is a Golden Era of shopping.
Another huge factor in online shopping is the ease of payment. You don’t need to go outside with ridiculous amounts of cash or anything. You can pay with credit cards, debit cards or net banking. If you like to pay in cash, you can always order cash-on-delivery. Also, nowadays there is also an option of payments through e-wallets where you can store some money, or directly pay from cards or your saving account. You can also choose options of EMI in online shopping.
What will be the future of online shopping?
From where I am looking, the future seems sky-high. A lot of investments are being made in the e-commerce with newer companies coming into action each day. Even the age-old companies have already begun shifting towards online shopping. No matter how the metrics of economy shift, e-commerce will constantly be the on the rise, increasing its proportion of overall shopping.
It’s unlikely that online shopping would completely replace the physical stores. Because a vast number of people still like the regular orthodox method of shopping where they want to see the product before buying. In fact, some items are better purchased offline than online. Yet, there is no saying how e-commerce will evolve. Who knows regular offline retail shopping may even become obsolete in coming years.
