Did Online Shopping Take Over Traditional Shopping?

Ever since the Internet came to our life, everything seems to be moving to cyberspace. Most of the things make our life easier. We can almost find all the things we need with ease. All you have to do to is just connect your smart device to the Internet, type a keyword, and you’ll get the list of potential answers to your search. You can find the best coffee shop in town or a recommended hotel when you are travelling. Amazingly, you can meet your old friends after losing the contact for years. Internet banking activities is another story of how Internet pampers your life. Isn’t it great? These are a few example of Internet activities which has taken over the conventional ones. How about shopping activities? Nowadays, we can see many e-commerce sites on the Internet that provide various stuff, like clothes, gadgets, food, etc. Almost everything we find on traditional shops can be found in the online shops. Some of the stuff are even more affordable if we buy online than in the physical store. That’s why many users prefer to shop on the Internet instead of going to the traditional shop. Did online shopping take over traditional shopping?

Did online shopping took over traditional shopping?

I must admit that I enjoy shopping through the Internet, especially finding the rare and unique stuff. Shopping online can save your time and energy. You can just launch an online shopping site on your device, type the name of the stuff you are looking for, and click enter. If it’s not available on one site, you can launch the other shops without leaving your chair. It will only take minutes. Imagine if the e-commerce does not exist. We would have to move from one conventional shop to the other just to find one stuff. Isn’t it a waste of time and energy? Moreover, you can find many unique items which aren’t sold at the conventional stores. For example, iPhone 7 isn’t officially available in my country yet, but you can find many stores sell it in the online shops.

However, shopping online isn’t always fun. It also has some disadvantages, such as the seller is the scammer, the item you get is disappointing, the seller sending the wrong item, and so on. I am kind of online shopping addict and I  have some disappointing experiences. The good thing is, I got many great lessons from it to share with you. One disadvantage of buying a product from e-commerce is, sometimes, you can only rely on the picture and the description given by the seller. Many of them aren’t real photos. One time, I bought an interesting dress and when I received it, I got disappointed. It was too big, and the appearance and the fabric look cheap. One time, I had to wait a lot longer to receive what I’ve ordered.

So, I think, both online and traditional shoppings have their advantages and disadvantages. Even though I was disappointed many times through online shopping, on the other hand, I am still loving it with some tricks that I got from my previous experiences. Shopping at the mall will always be my favourite activity as well.

Tips And tricks Shopping Online

You don’t have to be afraid shopping through e-commerce because not all seller are scammers, or sell bad quality products. Some of them have good service and responsible for their products. All you need is to become a smart buyer. These tips and tricks I am going to share will help you to shop online with smart.

Read the product description carefully

Of course, touching or testing the product isn’t possible if we shop online. The photos that they upload sometimes aren’t the real ones. It mostly occurs on fashion categories, such as dress, bag, shoes, etc. Make sure the seller includes the material (ex. made of cotton, polyester, etc.) and the specific size (length, width, height by using inch, cm, and so on instead of the single number). The challenge is, you must have knowledge about fabric materials. When it comes to electronics and gadgets, ensure you read the complete specifications.

Read customer reviews

If the seller gives a little information to describe the products, you can read their customer reviews. Usually, you can find it under the product description. Here, you can get the information of the product from buyer experiences directly.

Ask the seller

The new products or sellers usually don’t have any customer reviews yet. If the information you get from product description doesn’t satisfy you, and there’s no customer review yet, you can send the message to seller to ask for detail information.

Choose only the trusted seller

How to find out if a seller is trustable or not? You can know it from customer reviews. The more customers give them positive reviews the more it shows the good seller. You can also see them from the badge given by e-commerce. The badge can show how long the seller has been selling the products on that e-commerce website.

Choose the safest payment method

Many e-commerce sites provide the safety payment method which will protect both – buyer and seller. If you have more than one payment methods, choose the safest one. Be a smart buyer by gaining information from many sources of which payment method is better.

Be careful if the price doesn’t make sense

Find a great stuff in very low price is so interesting. Recently, I found someone selling a new iPhone 7 for only $400. Does it make sense? At glance, it’s tempting, but it so impossible. There are two possibilities then: the seller is a scammer or it’s a super copy of iPhone 7. The appearance is exactly like an iPhone 7, but when you open it, you will find Android OS. The buyers get too excited with a very cheap price so that they ignore the product description.

See also: 5 Legitimate Ways To Make Money Online