E Commerce

Electronic commerce (most commonly known as ecommerce) is any commercial activity that can be done online. It has become very popular in recent years especially with shops and the majority of shops have now become a “click” as well as a “brick” as they feel like it will increase their customer base as they are appealing to more people and some are just a “click” for example: Amazon and Ebay. As well as shops banks are also going online as they too believe that it will appeal to more people. There are many advantages and disadvantages to shopping online and going to a shop.

The advantages of physically going to a shop are:

• You can try out the products
• You don’t have to pay postage and packaging
• You don’t have to wait for delivery
• You can pay with cash

However there are disadvantages of going to a shop would include:

• You’d have to queue
• You spend money on fuel

The advantages of shopping online are that:

• You don’t need to travel which would save you fuel
• You don’t have to queue
• You can shop 24/7
• You can instantly compare on prices/ brands/ bus fare
• You don’t have to worry about carrying your items – you have them delivered
• You are able to shop on your mobile
• You can do it in your own convenience
• You may get better offers online
• You can also review other customer reviews so that you know what to expect
• The products you buy regularly are stored to your favourites
• There is a wider range of products
• It is easy to find what you are looking for as there is a search bar

The disadvantages however of shopping online are:

• You cant try out the products
• You have to spend a certain amount so that you get free postage and packaging
• You might miss out on store offers
• There are security risks

Banking

There is now an option to do you personal banking online rather than physically going into a bank which has its advantages.

Advantages which would include:

• Convenience: it will save you travel costs and time as well as being able to visit the bank from the comfort of your home.
• Open 24/7- this means that you will be able to access your bank account when best suited to you.
• As well as these two the other advantage to banking online is that when you transfer money from one account to another it is done instantly, you don't have to fill out any forms and you don't have to queue up.

However there are disadvantages to banking online which include:

• Difficulties using the site: sometimes it isn't simple when doing things online and you can be unsure of whether transactions have been successful or not or if you have done things correctly.
• The biggest disadvantage when banking online is that you can be unsure if the site can be trusted and you would need it to be as you are inputting personal details. As well as this there are possibilities of identity theft.

Ebay

Ebay is only a “click” which can be seen as a great advantage. It was founded in 1995, they're slogans include: "Connecting buyers and sellers globally." "What ever it is, you can get it on eBay." "Buy it, sell it, love it"

Advantages of using EBay

• Wide ranges of products: this is a huge benefit as when you shop on their store you are more than likely to find something that you want.
• Good deals- with this site you 'bid' for the item that you want and by doing this you will pay a price that you want to pay and not have to pay a set price and as soon as the product you want to buy is out of your price range you no longer have to bid for it.
• As well as buying items you can also use this site to sell your unwanted items.

Disadvantages of using EBay:

• Unable to view products: this is seen to be a huge disadvantage as you don't know the seller and they might not be trust worthy so you don't know for sure what it is you're buying.
• Scams: because you can't see the product you could be scammed into buying something that isn't what you wanted.