Online shopping is the process whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller in real-time, without an intermediary service, over the internet. If an intermediary service is present the process is called electronic commerce. An online shop, eshop, e-store, internet shop, webshop, webstore, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks and mortar retailer or in a shopping mall. The process is called Business to Consumer (B2C) online shopping. When a business buys from another business it is called Business to Business (B2B) online shopping. Both B2C and B2B online shopping are forms of e-commerce.
Online shopping widened the target audience to men and women of the middle class. At first, the main users of online shopping were young men with a high level of income and a university education. This profile is changing. For example, in USA in the early years of Internet there were very few women users, but by 2001 women were 52.8% of the online population
Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly, or do a search across many different vendors using a shopping search engine. Online shoppers commonly use credit card to make payments, however some systems enable users to create accounts and pay by alternative means, such as mobile phones and landlines, cash on delivery, check, debit card and electronic money.Once a payment has been accepted the goods or services can be delivered such as downloading, drop shipping, in-store pickup and shipping.
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