An increasing number of people are buying what they need online. What are the advantages and disadvantages for both individuals and companies to shopping online. v.19

Online shopping has become increasingly popular these days and more and more people prefer to shop online instead of going to traditional stores. This trend has both the benefits and drawbacks to customers and retailers in general. On the one hand, the convenience of buying something online is that customers do not need to walk into a physical store. Instead, retailers are constantly trying to reduce the distance between them and customers’ wallet. For example, customers do not have to interact with sales reps who may nudge them towards a particular purchase, or cashiers that pressure them into buying something on top of what’s already in their cart, or the physical store itself, which is meticulously designed to subconsciously manipulate customers. On the other hand, the dark side of online shopping is on the customer manipulation. People may not realize that online shopping is as much a cocktail of manipulative strategies, on the part of vendors, by gathering data from shoppers and competitors to make decisions. For instance, a seller adjusts the price for a buyer, according to attributes such as the customer’s eagerness to buy the item, the seller’s history with them, the supply of the item, the demand of the item. Nevertheless, customers would riot if they found out and retailers would loss trust from them consequently -- a reason preventing online retailers from embracing this strategy. As a substitute, buyers would receive a discount if the seller checked quote from their competitors. In conclusion, even though online shopping provides many benefits for both consumers and suppliers which can attribute to reduction of visiting distance and convenience, this method has some drawbacks to them such as price adjustment. Though, they may also gain benefits from price discrimination under certain circumstances.