Online
shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly
buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser.
Alternative names are: e-shop, e-store, Internet shop, web-shop,
web-store, online store, and virtual
store. An online shop evokes the physical analogy of buying products or
services at a bricks and mortar retailer or shopping center, the process is
called business-to-consumer (B2C) online shopping. In the case where a business
buys from another business, the process is called business-to-business (B2B)
online shopping. The largest of these online retailing corporations are e-Bay and Amazon.com, both based in the United States.
The
first World Wide Web server and browser, created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990,
opened for commercial use in 1991. Thereafter, subsequent technological
innovations emerged in 1994: online banking, the opening of an online pizza
shop by Pizza Hut, Netscape's SSL v2 encryption standard for secure data
transfer, and Intershop's first online shopping system. Immediately after,
Amazon.com launched its online shopping site in 1995 and eBay was also
introduced in 1995.
Online
customers must have access to the Internet and a valid method of payment in
order to complete a transaction.
Generally,
higher levels of education, and personal income, correspond to more favorable
perceptions of shopping online. Increased exposure to technology also increases
the probability of developing favorable attitudes towards new shopping channels.
In
a December 2011 study, Equation Research surveyed 1,500 online shoppers and
found that 87% of tablet owners made online transactions with their tablet
devices during the early Christmas shopping season.
Consumers
find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly or
by searching among alternative vendors using a shopping search engine.
Once
a particular product has been found on the website of the seller, most online
retailers use shopping cart software to allow the consumer to accumulate
multiple items and to adjust quantities, like filling a physical shopping cart
or basket in a conventional store. A "checkout" process follows
(continuing the physical-store analogy) in which payment and delivery
information is collected, if necessary. Some stores allow consumers to sign up
for a permanent online account so that some or all of this information only
needs to be entered once. The consumer often receives an e-mail confirmation
once the transaction is complete.
Less
sophisticated stores may rely on consumers to phone or e-mail their orders
(although full credit card numbers, expiry date, and Card Security Code, or
bank account and routing number should not be accepted by e-mail, for reasons
of security).
Online
shoppers commonly use a credit card or a PayPal account in order to make
payments. However, some systems enable users to create accounts and pay by
alternative means, such as:
Billing to mobile phones and landlines , Cash
on delivery (C.O.D.) , Cheque/ Check , Debit card , Direct debit in some
countries , Electronic money of various types , Gift card, Postal money order ,
Wire transfer/delivery on payment , Invoice, especially popular in some
markets/countries, such as Switzerland
Some
online shops will not accept international credit cards. Some require both the
purchaser's billing and shipping address to be in the same country as the
online shop's base of operation. Other online shops allow customers from any
country to send gifts anywhere.
The
financial part of a transaction may be processed in real time (e.g. letting the
consumer know their credit card was declined before they log off), or may be
done later as part of the fulfillment process.
Once
a payment has been accepted, the goods or services can be delivered in the
following ways:
Downloading: The method often used for digital
media products such as software, music, movies, or images.
Drop shipping: The order is passed to the
manufacturer or third-party distributor, who then ships the item directly to
the consumer, bypassing the retailer's physical location to save time, money,
and space.
In-store pick-up: The customer selects a local
store using a locator software and picks up the delivered product at the
selected location. This is the method often used in the bricks and clicks
business model.
Printing out, provision of a code for, or
e-mailing of such items as admission tickets and scrip (e.g., gift certificates
and coupons). The tickets, codes, or coupons may be redeemed at the appropriate
physical or online premises and their content reviewed to verify their
eligibility (e.g., assurances that the right of admission or use is redeemed at
the correct time and place, for the correct dollar amount, and for the correct
number of uses).
Shipping: The product is shipped to a
customer-designated address.
Will call, lCOBO (in Care Of Box Office), or
"at the door" pickup: The patron picks up pre-purchased tickets for
an event, such as a play, sporting event, or concert, either just before the
event or in advance. With the onset of the Internet and e-commerce sites, which
allow customers to buy tickets online, the popularity of this service has
increased.
Shopping cart systems
Simple systems allow the off-line
administration of products and categories. The shop is then generated as HTML
files and graphics that can be uploaded to a webspace. The systems do not use
an online database.[citation needed]
A high-end solution can be bought or rented as
a stand-alone program or as an addition to an enterprise resource planning
program. It is usually installed on the company's webserver and may integrate
into the existing supply chain so that ordering, payment, delivery, accounting
and warehousing can be automated to a large extent.
Other solutions allow the user to register and
create an online shop on a portal that hosts multiple shops
simultaneously.[citation needed]
Open source shopping cart packages include
advanced platforms such as Interchange, and off-the-shelf solutions such as
Magento, osCommerce, PrestaShop, Shopify, Zen Cart.
Commercial systems can also be tailored so the
shop does not have to be created from scratch. By using an existing framework,
software modules for various functionalities required by a web shop can be
adapted and combined.[citation needed]
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