Both Online shopping and offline shopping have the same purpose, which is to get items that we want, fulfil our needs and desire to shop, and to relax and relieve stress. However, online shopping has far more advantages than offline shopping. So, what makes them so different? There are several points that lead to these differences. Examine the differences of online shopping and offline shopping by looking at the time consuming, variety, and prices.
Talking about the time it takes, “When shopping online, you will not have to plan a trip to your nearest shopping centre. All of the information is available to you. You can proceed to do shopping within a short period” (Retail Minded, 2020, para. 3). Online shopping also helps you save time searching for the items you are looking for, as all the information you need is in your device. You can search anything you want while sitting in you couch. In contrast, offline shopping requires you to go to a store to buy your item, which will take time to be there. Not to mention the traffic, routes, distances and also another trip if the store does not have the item that you are looking for.
In terms of variety, online shopping makes you able to look at a lot of kind of items. Your choices are not limited by supplier or brand. You can look up any kinds of items and any brand that you like. While in offline shopping, your choices are limited by what the store provided. Which gives you a fewer selection of items. Thus, makes it really hard for you to look for the item that you really wanted. “A large traditional brick-and-mortar shoe retailer offers at most a few thousand distinct varieties of shoes. However, as we will see, an online retailer may offer over 50,000 distinct varieties.” (Quan and Williams, 2017). This has become one of the reasons why people most likely to shop online when they looking for something they wanted. They can give fewer efforts and have bigger selection to find the right item. The amounts of items that are provided in online shopping is one of the biggest advantages against the offline shopping.
Lastly, online shopping provides cheaper prices than offline shopping. Most people find that when they compare the price in the online shop and offline shop, they often find that online shop gives lower price for the same item. Thus, making them chose to buy it online. “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.” (Bagla, 2017). Also, online shop sometimes gives discounts and coupons. These discounts and coupons are what attracts people to buy their items. So not only that they will save time and efforts, they will also pay less for the items they wanted. In contrast, offline shop usually gives normal price in their products. Which gives the costumer no motivation and desire to buy the item. This difference is also what makes people more interest to buy items online.
In conclusion, online shopping and offline shopping have their own characteristics and purposes. Even so, based on the evidence, online shopping is much more advanced than offline shopping. People are getting more and more interested and more comfortable with online shopping instead of having to leave the house to buy something they wanted. They can save their time from driving around the city. They can also relax, see more products and choices, also choose prices that suit them without the need to hold a cash to pay for their items.
Author: Yehezkiel David Maruli Sigalingging
References
- “PRODUCT VARIETY, ACROSS-MARKET DEMAND HETEROGENEITY, AND THE VALUE OF ONLINE RETAIL” by Thomas W. Quan and Kevin R. Williams, November, 2016, June, 2017
https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d20/d2054-r.pdf - Retailminded.com “Five benefits of online shopping and offline shopping” September 14, 2020
https://retailminded.com/five-benefits-of-online-shopping-and-offline-shopping/#.YJkmT7UzbIU - “Online Shopping vs Offline Shopping” by Mrs. Divya Bagla
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343981513_Online_Vs_Offline_shopping