Online shopping has emerged as one of the biggest sensation of the twenty first century. Ever since human history has evolved, commerce has played the most significant role in development. Initially barter was the mode of transaction, then as the civilizations developed metals, spices, coins, slaves, cash notes used to trade in lieu of goods. Though now in this era e- commerce has broken all barriers and plastic money or we can say online paperless transaction has broken all barriers. With a click on mouse or tap on smart phone whole world is in your pocket and that too at your comfort.
In the late years of twentieth century it was internet which took the world with awe, however, the dimension which e-commerce gave to internet is unparallel. With a single click of mouse one is connected with whole world and so much so one can buy any stuff of his liking that too on reasonable prices sometimes even lower than the retail market price.
Online shopping has multi dimensional approach. The websites which operate through online modes may actually not even own a store. They either are partially or fully operated through third party vendor. So the product which you actually bought from flipkart.com or amazo.com might actually has been sold through your shop next door.
But the horizon of online shopping is infinite and cannot be assessed. It has not only opened doors of trading to the farthest part of the world as well as brought economies closer to each other.
Mechanism of online shopping:
In today’s scenario virtual media has overtaken reality. Online shopping too works on similar phenomenon. E-commerce is about combining three different systems:
- Web server manages an online storefront like flipkart, amazon, askmebazaar.com and many more. Server process transactions making appropriate links to bank computers to check out people’s credit card details.
- Database system keeps a check of the items the store has in stock
- A dispatch system linked to a warehouse where the goods can be instantly located and sent to the buyer as quickly as possible.
These three systems are essentially required and are backbone of the online shopping company. Even small traders can successfully run small-scale online stores without either complicated databases or dispatch systems as only a website and dedicated team is required to publicize their business and take orders and also to manage the stock control and dispatch. Small traders have thus nowadays have thus devised this mechanism to revolutionize their business.
Though advantages of the online shopping are vast and infinite, similarly risks are also involved in e-shopping. Though the market is nowadays dominated with good e-commerce websites, which give reliable service, but still there are grey areas which are posing a great threat to the consumers. If a customer is not having good exposure of the subject he can be duped of his hard earned money. But while online shopping is about innovations one must be very careful to check the authenticity of the website, mode of payments i.e. it should preferably be through cash on delivery and before purchasing something product specifications, quality checks and delivery options should be checked as they may vary from store to store.
Hence as a sequel of discussion made in para supra, if one is having good exposure in this sector, online shopping is good for traders as well as customers. Not only it gives flexibility to the traders to flex his marketing skills and display his goods all over the world that too at the comfort of office table, it also gives scope to the customer to choose from variety of products from all over the world.
- Challenges of Integrated Marketing Communication - October 27, 2024
- What Does A Business Development Manager Do? - April 8, 2024
- Let’s Know About Online Retailing, Before You Start - September 10, 2023