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Online shopping is the process consumers go through to purchase products or services over the Internet. An online shop, e-shop, internet shop, webshop or online store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or in a shopping mall. It is an electronic commerce application used for business-to-business electronic commerce (B2B) or business-to-consumer electronic commerce (B2C). Online shopping is popular mainly because of its speed and ease of use. Some issues of concern can include fluctuating exchange rates for foreign currencies, local and international laws and delivery methods.

Product reviews

Online shoppers can easily learn from previous experiences of different products, mostly by reading user or expert reviews. Reading online product reviews is usually the first step in online shopping, which plays an important role in customers' decisions. Many online stores such as Amazon.com and Newegg today allow customers to comment or rate their items. There are also dedicated review sites (e.g. Epinions, etc.) to host user reviews for different products.

Store reputation

It is important to do business with reputable online stores to avoid possible Internet fraud and to easily exchange or return when things go wrong. Again, shoppers often read store ratings or reviews by other customers if they are not familiar with some online stores.

Some general guidelines apply when choosing an online store

Honesty in providing product information and availability
Speed of orders processing
Shipping cost and speed: online package tracking is popular today
Return/exchange policy: the time frame customers can return/exchange; who should pay the returning shipping; if there is any restocking fee etc.

Some online stores also provide live chat with their representatives in case customer need to discuss the product.

Price comparison

An advantage of shopping online is being able to use the power of the internet to seek out the lowest prices or the best deals available for items or services. For example if one is buying a digital camera he/she should enter "digital camera" into a search engine or a price search engine. Most price comparison services have the advantage of store ratings and reviews. Getting the lowest price is important but it is more important to make sure the merchant or store the customer is purchasing from is reputable. There are some online stores that display ridiculously low prices, but when you call them you may find out that the item you're seeking is out of stock. This is called the "bait and switch" technique. The best way to avoid backorder disappointment is to contact the online store by phone and verify that the product you're seeking is in stock. If you're told that there's only one left, then place your order by phone.

The differences between the online prices and local store prices also rely on the shipping cost and tax. A wise customer would consider the final prices instead of just product prices.

Discounts

There are multiple websites (e.g. FatWallet, DealTaker, dealsea, Couponalbum, Memolink, BeforeShopping.com, FindSavings etc.) that compile coupon or discount information for most online merchants. Before purchasing online, it is usually worth checking for discounts and coupons. Typing the name of the online merchant along with the word "coupon" in a search engine will provide multiple results. Some of the more popular coupon websites have forums where you can ask for help hunting down a deal if you don't have the time.

There are at least three major shopping portals that provide members rebates or rewards for shopping via their sites. How does it work? The merchants pay the portals for the business; the portals share the proceeds with the member. Rebates usually range in the 2-5% range. Membership is free, but some portals require a higher rebate balance before payout. Some will send out a payment automatically, others wait until the member requests one. If you join, be sure to read the fine print so you understand the rebate program.

Placing online orders

The actual steps of ordering online is simple after the preparing steps of reading reviews and finding a balance between good stores and good prices:

Browse product categories using a web browser
Put items into virtual shopping cart (or market basket).

Just as in a physical store viewing the contents of the cart can be done at any time.

Quantities of products can be changed or deleted.

Checkout

Log in or register by choosing a username and a password. Not all online stores require registration.

Enter personal data.

Billing address

Shipping address (some online stores do not permit a separate shipping address, that is they won't ship to post office boxes, at least not online)

Phone number

E-Mail address (extremely important, as they may have no other way of contacting you if a problem arises)

Choose means of payment

Choose delivery speed and method (post, courier and logistics service, etc.)

Confirm order

After editing the personal data a confirmation page is displayed so that the online shopper can approve, change or abort the order.

Logout

Means of payment

Oline shoppers commonly use their credit card for making payments, however some systems enable users to create accounts and pay by alternative means, such as

Debit card
Various types of electronic money
Cash on delivery (C.O.D.) Note: Very few online stores will ship C.O.D.
Cheque
Wire transfer/delivery on payment
Postal money order
PayPal
Google Checkout
Gift Cards
Direct Debit in some countries

Product Delivery

Once a payment has been accepted the goods or services can be delivered in the following ways.

Download: This is the method often used for digital media products such as software, music, movies, or images.
Shipping: The product is shipped to the customer's address.
In-store pickup: The customer orders online, finds a local store using locator software and picks the product up at the closest store. This is the method often used in the bricks and clicks business model.

Security issues

User and payment data is encrypted by SSL when it is transferred on the Internet.
Quality seals can be placed on the Shop webpage if it has undergone an independent assessment and meets all requirements of the company issuing the seal. The purpose of these seals is to increase the confidence of the online shoppers; the existence of many different seals foils this effort to a certain extent.
Privacy of personal information is a big issue. In spite of Privacy Guidelines of the OECD, for example, privacy violations still occur and hamper eCommerce from developing to its full potential.

Age

Many online stores require customers to be at least 18 for some reason

Setting up a shopping cart system

Simple systems allow the offline administration of products and categories. The shop is then generated as HTML files and graphics that can be uploaded to a webspace. These systems don't use an online database.
A high end solution can be bought or rented as a standalone program or as an addition to an ERP program. It is usually installed on the company's own webserver and may integrate very well 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 at the same time.
Open Source solutions can be adapted and installed on a webspace.
There are also commercial systems that can be tailored to ones needs so that the shop does not have to be created from scratch. By using a framework already existing, software modules for different functionalities required by a webshop can be adapted and combined.
Following the growth of online retailing activities, there are a number of specialist online retail professional services providers who offer e-commerce and internet marketing to retailers. This will involve website design and development, integration with order processing and stock systems as well as online advertising services.
Another option is to open a subscription based store using the technologies from larger companies (eBay or Mega-Bids.com). While they charge for their services, most of the hard work is done for you, they have already lined up payment processors and have tested the store format. They also let you personalize your new store front with logos and by uploading information about your company.

Free software

Hosted Services

E-junkie

Comparison

Comparison of ecommerce solutions

History

1990: Tim Berners-Lee wrote "The WorldWideWeb browser" using a NeXT computer.
1994: Netscape released the Navigator browser in October under the code name Mozilla. Pizza Hut offered pizza ordering on its Web page. The first online bank opened. Attempts to offer flower delivery and magazine subscriptions online. "Adult" materials were also commercially available, as were cars and bikes. Netscape 1.0 in late 1994 introduced SSL encryption that made transactions secure.
1995: Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com and the first commercial 24 hr. internet only radio stations "Radio HK" and Netradio started broadcasting. Dell and Cisco began to aggressively use Internet for commercial transactions. eBay was founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb.
1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
1999: business.com was sold for US $7.5 million (purchased 1997 for US $150,000) The peer-to-peer filesharing software "Napster" was launched.
2000: The dot-com bust.
2001: Merger of AOL and Time Warner.
2003: Amazon.com: first-ever full-year profit.
2005: Google.com: Now use it to find different searches to buy things

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 *[[Online used car shopping]]
 *[[Virtual shopping]]
+*[[Elib.org]] - Online directory listing information about [[online stores]].
 [[Category:Electronic commerce]]