Online shopping is popular for a number of reasons:
Convenience - In a fast paced society, time saved by
searching, comparing, and buying online versus hitting the streets and browsing
the brick and mortar stores is immeasurable. It can take less than five minutes
to buy a grill online. Load up and visit the mall and it typically takes a
couple of hours to complete the same task.
Selection – Linking up to the world marketplace means a
mind boggling selection of goods and services. Almost any item a consumer can
imagine is available when the shops of the globe are as close as a computer
terminal. If you collect miniature nativity sets from faraway places, you’ll
find few options in any given store but a host of sets by clicking and looking
around online.
Savings – While consumers can drive around from store to
store to price compare, it takes a lot of time, energy, and organization to
nail the best deal. Checking online prices is as simple as clicking to the
various stores and looking around or logging in to a price comparison site
where the data is on one page.
Top online sites for comparison shopping (April 2005) as documented
by comScore:
Shopping.com
Shopzilla
Yahoo Shopping
NextTag
Shop.com
Froogle
PriceGrabber
Overall, customers are satisfied with online shopping with an overall
satisfaction rate of 80 as noted by Foresee Results in the 2005 Annual
E-Commerce report. The rate is somewhat lower than previous years perhaps
reflecting higher expectations on the part of the growing buying public. Early
buyers bought and crossed their fingers. Today online consumers expect and
demand top notch service.