Online Shopping: Pros and Cons - Essay Example

Online shopping is one single trend that has been defined in the last decade or so with millions of people being part of the incredible change in the way people do things. The way people exchange and collect information has been changing on the internet, and so has online line shopping. Online shopping allows customers to buy something online and pay using electronic money using a credit card (Filipe & Obaidat, 2008). This has come out as an advantage for many people who viewed it as a growing trend even though there are hazards that come along with online shopping. It is true that for many reasons the whole idea seems relaxing, dependable and reliable some people take advantage of the same.

There are very many benefits of online shopping that make it so popular among various people with different reasons for shopping online. For instance, people do not have to move around the city searching for something, instead, they only need an internet connection, and they get to select every item that they need at their own time and speed. With the improved technology, they can as well shop from their mobile phones wherever they are (Filipe & Obaidat, 2008). Online shopping also gives consumers a variety of items to choose from with various outlets to select from making it very effortless for people to virtually get anything they need. There is also the advantage of locating everything usual online as opposed to physical retailers where it is easy to miss something someone needs.

Though online shopping has only been praised by many people, there are some cases where it can be regarded as dangerous. For example, if people are not very keen while doing online shopping, they could find themselves in the hands of cyber thieves and end up losing a lot of money. This may come as a shock thinking that people have believed online shopping to be the safest place to buy items, but someone may be targeted and conned easily. This is why people are advised to manage their online shopping properly and be keen on the people they communicate with regarding online shopping. Another disadvantage of online shopping is that a person first pays for an item before it is mailed or delivered to them unlike at retail shops where people get to carry their items to their destination. People are advised to perform online shopping at stores with excellent status (Filipe & Obaidat, 2008). There is also the disadvantage of the wrong product being delivered to the customer and there are no refunds in most online shops.