Table of Contents
Online Vs Offline Shopping Essay
Introduction
Advances in technology give sellers better opportunities to reach customers in faster, easier and more economical ways. Online shopping has been growing rapidly in recent years. Currently the Internet attracts the attention of the retail market. Millions of people shop online. On the other hand, the purchase of products from traditional markets has continued for the past few years.
Many go for offline shopping so that they can test the product and get the product in hand only after paying for the product. Customer loyalty in this contemporary world depends on the consistent ability to deliver quality, value and satisfaction.
Some go for online shopping and many go for both. This study discusses consumer preferences or advantages and disadvantages for online shopping and advantages and disadvantages of offline shopping. But online shopping is easier for people and consumers should decide which channel is best for them while making purchase decision than offline shopping. According to their needs and what can satisfy them.
In this competitive world how consumer can decide the particular medium for their purchase of goods is very important to understand in a managerial point of view (Laing and Lai, 2000) said that the internet shopping is the third best and most popular activity over internet after online shopping next comes the email using instant messaging and web browsing.
They are more important than watching or being entertained on the Internet or getting any information or news, these are two very common thoughts that come to people’s minds when they consider Internet users when they are online.
Online shopping
Now a day the life style of the people is different. People feel uncomfortable and time consuming for going crowded market. So, e-shopping is a boon as it saves lot of time. Online shopping is a process whereby consumers directly buy goods, services etc. From a seller without an intermediary service over the internet. Shoppers can visit web stores from the comfort of their house and shop as by sitting in front of the computer.
Online stores are usually available 24 hours and many people have internet access both at work and at home so it is very convenient for them to shop online. One of the most enticing factors about online shopping, especially during the holiday season, is that it reduces the need to wait in long lines or search stores for a particular item. Various products are available online.
Definition
In computer technology and tele-communication online and offline are defined by federal standard 1037c. They are states or conditions of a “device or equipment” or of a functional unit” to be considered online, one of the following may apply to a system: it is under the direct control of another device ; it is under the direct control of the system with which it is associated ;or it is available for immediate use on demand by the system. Without human intervention.
In contrast, a device that is offline meets none of these criteria (e.g.. Its main power source i disconnected or turned off or it is off-power).
The oxford dictionary “online” (sometime also referenced as “on the line:”) a controlled by or connected to a computer” and as an activity or service, which is “available on or performed using the internet or other computer network term is utilized within terms such as these: “online identity” “online predator, “online gambling”.. “online shopping’ online banking, and “online learning? The online context is given to other words by the prefixes “cyber” and “e”, as in the words “cyberspace”, “cybercrime”, “email” and “ecommerce.
Factors affecting online shopping – Online Vs Offline Shopping
Shopping online shopping becomes relevant in the last decade. The kind of business online retailer are doing is proof enough that they are providing some benefits to customer which offline shopping does not give to the customer. These are the factors affecting online shopping.
- Risk: when customer buy products from online shopping they do feel the product in not touch or feed physical sense. Hence we understand that lot of risk in is involve while buying on online product whether it will reach us on proper time or not is also a concern and also there may arise a risk of product size and color as it may differ in real view or sense. Sometimes the product ordered is kind of damaged.
- Convenience: online shopping is much more convenient than offline shopping instead of taking out your vehicle and visit shop to shop you can just sit at your home and do the shopping. It is convenient to sit at one place and shop the product of our choice without moving from place to place. Once you have decided on what you want to buy the payment process is seamless and the order is delivered or your place.
- Anxiety: people’s anxiety of exploring the sites and experimenting over them is also a matter of concern. Sometimes people those who are not very known to any sites like flip kart, myntra or any sites they rust feel like it’s tough, kind of activity over not and its complicated in there sense as they are not very fond of doing online shopping as it takes a time to even understand the product about its details. This particular activity makes them irritated and anxious over any kind of fatal online dealing.
- Previous online experience: how has been a person’s experience in post as far as online shopping is concerned is a major story of concern. Previous experience, is what matters actually as its hamper or sometime it keeps good view or mood of people. There are two experiences one is about good and another is about bad. Both has its own and different affect in the mind of buyers. So, these factors also influence online shopping one-shop
- Pricing policy: online retailers get an inherent advantage in pricing on they don’t have to bear expenses like store. Rent, bills etc. They can pass their price directly to customer and generally offer a lower price to customer than offline market. Even when shipping charger are included than also it is batten than the offline shopping.
- Quality: the quality of product at. Online sites and offline stores vary a lot and then this determines the frequency of online shopping. Quality also cornier good affecting nature over any kind of shopping. As consumer or buyer want to have a good quality of product, as they spent their huge sum of money. In general, qualifier is a primary need over any kind of purchasing as it somewhat secures or give a good sense of buying or kind of guarantee about the product preferred.
- Online trust: it depends on customer perception whether they trust a particular site and its product and servicer. Hence the frequency of online shopping also depends on upon whether they trust a particular site or not. People are different in their nature and thoughts. Some kind of people trust online dealing some kind of people are in fear of online dealing. Trust 6 carry a lot of paints examples trust about the same product size quantity weight and security etc.
- Tangibility of the product : at the store the customer gets to touch and feel the product they purchase before buying which help the customer to take the decision to buy the product or not whether the product will suit the customer need or not whether we can and see feel a product is also a reason which determines whether a personas wants to go for shopping or not. Tangibility of any product also determines the online shopping without touching the preferred on desired, substance nobody can get its security about the worthiness or quality or sense of any performed product.
- Delivery time: the product ordered by the customer in online shopping takes a minimum of six to seven days to deliver the product to the customer. But in offline shopping the possession of the good is immediately transferred to the buyer. So this is a major factor which affects the online shopping. People want a good delivery time; they prefer to get a product in a desired time or in short time of duration. Duration is the second major factor affecting the demand of product.
- Income: the person whose, income is more, do more online shopping as compared to the person whose income is less, income plays a major role to purchase online product higher income people prefers to purchase online more than offline as it given them reliability and convenient. Higher the income higher will’s the purchasing of online product and vice-versa.
- Taste and preference: the taste and preference of the customer vary from customer to customer and time to time, taste and preference also a factor which influences online shopping. Taste and prefer emcee of age group also matters in online shopping. Old people buy or purchase product for their kind of use. Young generation or teenagers use to purchase their taste of product taste and preference move in tend of ages and choices. Every customer or buyer choices are different in nature as per their ages.
- Information: The information given in the site may not be correct or may not be appropriate information. The full information about the quality of the product may not reach to the customer. Hence it will affect the online buying of the customer. Information provided by the preferred sites may be not the same about the detail of the product. May be with the provided 7 information and details customers are not very satisfied .sometimes it happen that even many customers use to buy the product after their full knowledge of details as they prefers the details are accurate and good in sense .information related to product may vary in its real sense when it arrives or delivered or relevant customer.
- Variety: the kind of variety that a customer gets online is hard to match any product purchased offline. The online retailer’s stock products from the entire major brand and a customer can find only product in their listing no matter how hard to find it is in the offline store. Online and offline both shopping provide variety of range from various brands. Variety in it itself is the foremost dealing factor which influence the market. Larger the variety of product in shop higher the selling and vice-versa. People. Generally, prefer to move where they get more variety of products.
- Discreet shopping: while buying some products like lingerie customers don’t feel comfortable to purchase it in offline store… Shopping online, is discreet and some online. Portals also provide discreet shopping. Purchaser of girly material is very convenient in offline shopping as it is not dealt with any kind of uncomfortable, situation. There is noperson to who is to ask for any kind of intimate product, customer can easily cope with offline as they can go and purchase their usable items without any kind of hesitations.
- Offers: apart from offering products at lower price most online shopping regularly come up with discount offers in association with bank, brand etc. Which entail customers to get additional saving while buying products online? Offline stores only give offer or discount during stock clearance or when the manufactures give the discount on the products. Online shopping always provides offers at all the time and day.
- Instant gratification: customer buying offline gets their products as soon as they for it but in online shopping, customer have to wait for their product to get their product. Under normal circumstances waiting a day or two does not matter much but when a customer wants to get the product instantly than offline shopping become necessary.
- Available product and services: online shopping offer customers more benefit by providing more variety of goods and services that they can choose from. There are some goods which a customer can only find online.
Factors Affecting Offline Shopping – Online Vs Offline Shopping
Offline shopping has existence since the existence of mankind. Offline shopping gives different types of benefits to the customer. There are some factors which affect the shopping offline those are as follow.
- Less number of choices: There are limited numbers of choices when it comes to offline shopping. The numbers of choices when it comes to offline shopping. The numbers of varieties are limited. The ranges of products available in the shops are limited. Sometimes, the stocks are old and are up for discount and sale basically in offline or any shop we get less number of choices as it consists of manual work. We have to choice in that less number of materials due to manual factor.
- Time consuming : it takes a lot of time to go shopping to a home on stone distance from workplace to the store 16 time combining! It is also home consuming while trying out the outfits in a store or even going through other products. In offline shopping. Customer move one place to another and one shop to another in search, of their desired product.
- Information: what generally happens is that the information provided by a shopkeeper isn’t correct. Also this information doesn’t always suit our needs. And we buy products according to what they say when we ourselves don’t have adequate knowledge about the products, such purchases are based on goodwill when we happen to know the shopkeepers.
- Authenticity: offline shopping is more authentic, than online shopping. While buying the product we can feel the texture of it and know what it’s like. We exactly know what we are buying while buying anything offline. But in online shopping, we are we don’t always know what exactly buying. This is because what we see on the websites is not always what we buy when the product reaches us.
- Taste and preference: the taste and preferences of the customer change from time to time. While buying any product from a store we have the flexibility and the choice to try out i outfits. But while buying any product from a website we don’t have this facility. Therefore, buying offline caters more to the changing taste and preferences of the customers.
- Bargaining: in offline store a customer can do physical bargaining to the seller unlike shopping online. In online shopping a customer cannot do bargaining on the price of the product is fixed. Some of the customer purchased products depending upon bargaining so they do not go for online shopping as they feel shopping online is more costly than the market.
Difference Between Online And Offline Shopping
- Online shopping as the name suggest is done over internet and therefore you do not have stand in line on go anywhere from your home to purchase the stuff you like whereas in physical shopping if you want to buy you have to go nearby mall or shop and then purchase the item you like for from there.
- In online shopping one can look many products and that too multiple times without buying them and therefore it offers lot of flexibility whereas in case of physical on traditional shopping one does not have too much of choices as one has to buy the product which is available at shop and if that product is not available then either you buy the choice come product which is your second choice or wait for that product to come and then buy.
- In online shopping if one is buying products like shoes on clothes then. One cannot try the product before placing the order and therefore the chances of actual product being different from perceived product is high whereas in case of traditional shopping there is no such rick because consumer try it first and then buy and therefore there is no scope of difference between actual and perceived product.
- Online shopping is transparent in the sense that one can compare the price of product over different websites to ensure that he or she buys the product at cheapest price however in case of physical, shopping one does not have this luxury because the buyer has to purchase the product at a price which is quoted seller as there is no way of finding whether the price quoted by seller is fair or not.
- In case of online shopping thousands of different products are available at one place on website whereas in case of physical. Shopping this is not possible and hence if you want to buy mobile and trousers then you have to go to 2 different shops these products are different and hence it leads to time wastage. Hence one can say that when it comes to time saving online shopping definitely scores over physical shopping
- Online shopping scope is used by people who are tech savvy and therefore, it is mostly used by young people, however in recent times middle age and older age people too are getting used to it whereas physical shopping Is done by old people or by those who are not that familiar with technology advancement in e-commence and its benefits and they consider online shopping risky because of fear of fraud and unknown.
Online shopping is better than offline shopping
In recent years, the online shopping industry has absolutely exploded, to the point that there are now many people who will only buy new products online .it’s not difficult understand the potential benefits of shopping, but at the same time are also people who are sticking ordaining shopping, and they have their reasons as well ultimately, it certainly seems as if things are trending toward online shopping becoming more and more popular , but it is also highly unlikely that ordinary stores are going anywhere, so where do you stand on the issue? Here is a brief analysis of the factors that play into the debate.
- Convenience
one of the things people care most about when shopping is convenience .most people don’t enjoy spending endless hours shopping, whether in a store or online, and it is always rice to get these experiences over with as soon possible this is one of the main reasons that online shopping has become so popular, as it allows you to switch stores and products by clicking a button rather than traveling to a new store for example, at a store like marks and spencer you can buy a whole Christmas list’s worth of different products!
- Immediacy
When you purchase a new product, whether for yourself or for another person it always rices to have that that product in your possession immediately. This can allow you to be in control of the product or to wrap it quickly if necessary. This is one area in which ordinary shopping sill has an edge, because you do not have to wait for shopping.
- Saving money
Finally, another very important aspect of any shopping experience is trying to save as much money as possible one reason that people enjoy online shopping is that you can often find a product more cheaply online than you can in stores. However, to counter this fact, there are also shopping costs more often than not, and these can make up for the money you save with the base price advantage. Toss-up.
- Discounts and offers
Yes, online shopping is better than online because we can shop at any of our favorite shop and can get the delivery or same day itself and there are many courier service providers one of them is want it now. We can get various discount and offers while shopping
Conclusion
The review of relevant literature has revealed that majority of the studies have been conducted on outside the country. There has been no study in the context of Odisha. Most on the studies have focused on the switching behavior of the consumer from one channel to another channel. The literatures reveal that those who are aware of technology, knowledge and high-income level population, are specially engaged in the online shopping.
