Don't Drive to the Store: Click Your Mouse and Save Yourself Time and Money
Dec 14 '05
The Bottom Line The internet has changed shopping forever, and for the most part, the change has been good.
As my family and friends will fully attest, I make quite a few purchases by way of the internet. Ever since my first on- line purchase was made back in the late 1990’s on Amazon.com, I have slowly allocated more and more of my time and a larger portion of my spending to on- line buying. For me, this method of commerce has replaced ordinary shopping in many different areas, including books, office supplies, other the counter medicines, and much more.
What Is So Great About On- Line Purchasing?:
Using the internet for buying goods and services offers many advantages over traditional brick and mortar shopping. Here are some of the reasons why on- line shopping is best:
Convenience- Let’s start with the most obvious reason to shop on- line: CONVENIENCE! Before the days of the internet, one had to either drive to a shopping mall or individual retail store or use a shopping catalogue to place an order. Catalogues were a little more convenient than stores because you could use them from home. But they still required you to call during certain hours and to “play the game” according to the retailer. With the internet, the shopping decisions are completely up to you. The internet doesn’t close. It is open 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year. And when you shop on- line, you call the shots. You can shop quickly, slowly, take breaks when you want, have multiple windows open to compare prices, etc. There are no time restrictions when you shop on- line. And it is done from the convenience of your home so you can experience maximum comfort.
The Ability to Find Uncommon Merchandise- This is one of the greatest- if not the greatest- reasons to be thankful for the invention of the internet. Before the world wide web came into being, a shopper who was in the market for something rare had a difficult if not impossible time finding certain rare pieces of merchandise. This was especially true for those who lived in smaller towns without much retail business. Often, there would be no way to find these less common pieces of merchandise without driving long distances to a larger city. And even then, there was no guarantee that what you wanted would be available.
With the internet, this problem has basically vanished. I, for one, am often on the lookout for certain books and CD’s that are no longer in print. Since they are no longer manufactured, items like these cannot be found in an ordinary retail store. It’s true that many cities have used book and CD stores to help solve some of this problem, but there is still no guarantee they will have what you want, with their limited inventories. But today, with the internet, these and other goods like them can be tracked down and purchased. I have used Ebay and Amazon.com for this very purpose. The internet has enabled me to find rare CD’s that I would probably have never been able to purchase otherwise.
Sales Tax Avoidance- Yet another advantage of on- line buying is the avoidance of tax. The way most sales tax laws are written, purchases of merchandise from a state other than your own are exempted from sales tax. This can make on- line buying that much more advantageous, especially if you live in a state where the sales tax is high. The absence of sales tax alone can make many purchases on- line more economically viable, even when shipping charges are factored in.
In recent years, however, the trend has been toward collecting sales taxes on all purchases- even those that originate in a different state. In an effort to gain some more tax money, states have been making deals with on- line retailers to encourage them to collect sales tax. Some on- line stores have succumbed to the pressure, negating one of the key advantages to on- line shopping.
Abundance of Merchandise- Another obvious advantage of on- line buying is the vast amount of merchandise available. This isn’t necessarily the case within any particular web site, but it is the case when you consider the millions of places on- line to shop. What I mean is that Walmart.com may not have as many different items for sale as the physical Wal- Mart store but the internet as a whole has everything the physical Wal- Mart offers for sale plus a whole lot more.
Ability to Purchase in Bulk- This goes along with the last point. With a physical store, you are limited to buying large quantities by the amount presently in stock. But with the internet, there is usually no stated limit and even if there is, you can easily logon to another on- line store and purchase more.
More Competition- Because there are so many places on- line fighting for your sales dollars, there is a good chance you will be able to find a better price. It’s like anything else in a market economy- more free and open competition means more opportunities to find a better deal. And there are many web sites (Epinions included) that help consumers zero- in on the lowest price by offering comparisons of prices among different on- line stores with direct links into each one.
Product Information- The vastness of the internet extends beyond the actual number of items available for purchase. It also means there is more product information available to the consumer. Sometimes, the product information is included right in the retail on- line store and can be accessed with the click of a mouse. Other times, the product information has to be researched but it often takes very little time to find. And the information found can be much more beneficial than what you would find in the store. Besides giving you product specifications (something you could find in a physical store by reading the product’s label), the internet also lets you read about product flaws, problems with the manufacturer, limitations on use, and other negative information that the manufacturer doesn’t want you to know.
Are There Any Cons to Cyperspace Spending?:
As great as it sounds, there are a few negative points to on- line shopping. Here is a list of some of the limitations to web- based purchasing:
Greater Potential for Credit Card Fraud- Most on- line purchasing is conducted by the use of a credit card or a debit card and most of them accept the major cards like Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. The vast majority of on- line stores are completely safe for making a purchase, BUT there is always that chance that your credit card number will get into the wrong hands. Credit card fraud can occur in a physical location store as well, but the internet creates a greater chance for the incidence of fraud.
Shipping Time- Another obvious blemish on the on- line shopping report card is the shipping time. If you need something quickly, the internet may not be suitable at all for making purchases. Even if you have plenty of time to wait for your order, there is still a small chance that you won’t receive your merchandise in the necessary time frame. This is why you need to exercise additional caution during holiday shopping, birthday shopping, and other times when the merchandise is needed by a specific cutoff date. You might save a few dollars, but the risk of not having the merchandise in your hands in time for someone’s birthday, anniversary date, or Christmas makes the internet a risky place to shop when timing is critical.
Shipping Costs- This is another major con associated with on- line buying. Many orders- particularly those of large, heavy items- are going to include shipping charges. In my experience, the shipping charges were more than offset by the savings in sales tax but this isn’t always the case. In states where the sales tax is lower, the added shipping cost may very well be greater than the savings in sales tax, resulting in a total cost that is greater than that of a physical store location. You still get the convenience of ordering from home, but this may not be enough to justify the higher total cost.
Impracticality- Some items are just not very practical to buy on- line and other things cannot be purchased on- line at all. The best example that comes to mind here are groceries. There are services for this, but they are not very good because many food items are perishable and the added days in the shipping process can make them inch closer and closer to spoilage. And there are other items that cannot be purchased on- line because they cannot be shipped through the mail. Examples here include certain alcoholic beverages that are excluded from on- line sales due to strict state laws.
Inability to Physically “See” the merchandise- In most cases, we don’t need to physically examine what we buy. Items like books, travel, small appliances, and the like are going to be the same no matter how we purchase them. But in other instances, not being able to physically examine something makes the internet a poor choice for making a purchase. The most obvious example is clothing. The on- line retailers do the best job they can in letting us “see” an article of clothing by showing photo images than can be enlarged and viewed from different angles. But this is no substitute for shopping for clothing from an actual store. Besides the visual element, it is also nice to be able to try on clothing- something you, of course, cannot do when you buy clothing on- line.
Difficulty in Returning Merchandise- When you buy something from your local K-Mart or Home Depot and something goes wrong, there is no hesitation in taking the defective merchandise directly back to the place it came from for a full refund. But this isn’t so easy when you shop on- line. Web- based merchants have clearly defined rules for making returns and some of them are not as good as others. Add to that the inconvenience of repackaging, re- mailing, and waiting for a refund or replacement and many people will just accept what they get- even though it isn’t quite right- rather than put up with the hassle of making a return.
E-Mail Annoyances- Every on- line company requires your e-mail address to complete a sale. Most of them keep your personal e-mail address confidential but others are not so considerate. Unless there is a disclosure on the web site that your e-mail will not be given out, don’t be surprised if your favorite on- line store sells your e-mail address to another business or service, resulting in dozens of unwanted spam e-mail messages arriving daily in your inbox.
Final Thoughts:
The internet has permanently revolutionized marketing for citizens all over the world. Gone are the days when one had to either transport himself/herself to the local store or flip through the pages of a bulky catalog and then call in an order. Purchasing today can be made using this thing called the internet, saving consumers time and money with an abundant selection that is unsurpassed in even the largest shopping malls.
I have made thousands of dollars in on- line purchases, both for myself and for the places I have worked. The web sites I use most frequently for on- line purchasing and browsing are book sites, like Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble; travel sites, like Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, and Priceline.com; general merchandise sites like Smartbargains.com, and Overstock.com; retail store web sites like Wal-Mart.com, Target.com, and Bestbuy.com; and automotive sites like Edmunds.com, Carsdirect.com, and Autoweb.com. About the only thing I have never purchased on- line is groceries I don’t even know if such services still exist and if they are growing and thriving because I rarely hear about them. I assume they are still out there, since there is a need for such a service. But I have never had any real desire to use the internet for this type of purchase.
The reasons I like shopping on- line more than shopping in a store are summarized in the advantages I listed above. Among all of these, convenience and price are probably the most important. And the next most important is the ability to find rare merchandise. I can thank Ebay for helping me find many collectors items that I never would have found in my local area. Without something as vast and seemingly infinite as cyberspace, there would be little hope of finding rare items of merchandise for sale. But now, with the world wide web, I can often logon and find something extremely rare in a matter of minutes.
I have not had some of the problems others have had with internet shopping. The cons I listed above don’t really apply to me very much and they are not enough to deter me from performing transactions on- line. I have never been a victim of credit card fraud and I have never received a defective item from an on- line purchase. I can recall once when I didn’t receive my item in the mail at all (it was with Drugstore.com), but a quick phone call was all it took to get a replacement shipped to me with no questions asked. I can also recall many times when my merchandise was not shipped in the promised time frame. But since I wasn’t desperate at the time, it really didn’t matter that much to me and it didn’t dissuade me from making more purchases from the same on- line retailer in the future.
The only real hesitation I have with purchasing items on- line is with those things that I prefer to physically see first. Like I stated above, clothing is one of the few things I don’t like to buy on- line because I feel better about what I am buying if I can see and touch what I’m about to purchase. It should come as no surprise that I have made very, very few purchases of clothing on the internet. When I have made a purchase of clothing, it is usually because I received an e-mail gift card or something like that. I just don’t feel comfortable buying shirts, pants, shoes, and other items on the internet. I want to be able to see these things before I buy.
The world wide web has changed the world of retail shopping for good. It won’t ever replace the brick and mortar store but it will be around permanently as an alternative to traditional shopping. I have made literally hundreds of on- line purchases- both for businesses and for personal use- and I will continue to do more in the future. The convenience, the competitive pricing, and the ability to find rare and outdated merchandise are among the many reasons to enjoy shopping via the world wide web. It has saved me and the companies I have worked for hundreds and even thousands of dollars. It has become my favorite way to shop, and I plan to continue clicking my mouse as my primary means for purchasing goods and services for years to come.
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