online shopping ISP essay

ISP essay: Online shopping

By Bruce Huang

Online shopping can be a tough choice for some people, but an easy one for others. Why? Because some people think it is safer to shop online. Some people aren’t aware of the risks of shopping online, while other people aren’t aware of its advantages. The number that shop online easier is growing, but the number of dangers of shopping online is also growing. In this essay, i will notify you of the pros and cons of advantages, provide some info about online shopping, and also share my own opinion with you about online shopping.

Online shopping has been around for years, and it does seem like an attractive way to shop, at ease in your home without having to get off of that nice soft comfy sofa your on. Shopping online has definitely been around for a very long time, about 2 and a half decades. It was invented in 1979 by a marketer hoping to share info about prices and stock exchange over the Internet. His system was called videotex, and it proved a huge success in France, where it was first released. Sadly it was not successful in the UK, but it did prove a good starting point for online shopping to develop. Between the years of 1980 and 1990 a simpler easier to use computer was more readily available and more and more people started using them for every conceivable purpose. Then the SSL (secure-sockets-layer) Internet browser was invented. This facilitated online shopping as it encrypted a security feature into it. Soon pizza hut started selling pizza online, and that pretty much started a shopping revolution. In 1995 E-Bay and Amazon were born, and that revolutionized the online shopping world. Soon E-Bay was selling everything other than food, and Amazon was selling almost every known book/video/game/toy/software that was ever known. This marked the beginning and middle of online shopping, as it is still developing to this day, but what are its advantages and disadvantages?

Advantages to online shopping are location, speed, time. Location is important because you can shop anywhere, as long as you have some sort of Internet connection, whether fast or slow. Sometimes, shoppers are influenced by their connection with the Internet, as some complain that they would shop more online if their Internet connection was better. Another advantage is speed. Online shops can place your order instantly, and that is how some online bidding websites such as E-Bay operate. When you bid on such a website, the info is sent quickly and the entire auction is completely automated. This just shows how fast data is passed over the Internet, fast enough so that it’s possible for automated auctions to happen down to the second. Time is also another factor, because in a normal store it would close at a specific time and open at another time. Online stores operate for 24/7 and are always open so that you can make a purchase whenever you want. This is convenient because you might want to make a last minute order or reserve a copy of a video or movie so that you can have it when it’s out of stock. Also, there is a huge variety in online shops and they can make buying different things from different shops that would’ve taken you from one end of the mall to the other easier. You only have to switch tabs or open the website, and your literally shopping in a different store. While on a computer shopping online, you can also compare prices more easily, instead of having to run around the mall memorizing prices. Some websites even offer a comparison tool. Also, when shopping online, there are user reviews that can be extremely helpful. Some websites have a system of user reviews that have the product info on top, and the reviews below the info. That way, you can compare both while comparing review with review.

Some disadvantages of online shopping include unreliability. This is a reasonably large factor because sometimes online stores can be very unreliable. Sometimes the website might malfunction or the phone line is not working. These are all problems because if the website is down, you can’t buy anything, can you? And if the phone line is down or the website never returns your emails that would just be a delay. Also, sometimes an online shop can go bankrupt. Some smaller online shops that sell more exclusive items do go bankrupt very often, so you are advised to be careful if you do want to shop on those. Also, if you want to return something and the seller doesn’t respond to your messages at all, then you’re at risk of falling for the “ignore their messages and don’t respond so you don’t have to pay the refund (or other things)” trap. The seller just doesn’t respond to your messages and makes you think he shut down his account or something similar so that you don’t suspect anything. Another disadvantage is credit card theft. Credit card theft is a growing danger in the world of online shopping, as it has affected over 10 million people in the US alone and grows insanely quickly. An average every 4 seconds a credit card number or identity is stolen. Also, the demand for stolen credit card numbers is getting higher and higher by the second. In the black market, 100 credit card numbers only cost $100! Some ways to prevent credit card theft are listed below, but in truth, there is no real way to stop this, as it is just going to keep on coming, and lastly, another disadvantage of shopping online is that it is creates a large amount of pollution. When items are bought online and shipped, they undergo a rough procedure involving someone probably tossing the package into a container roughly if it were small or a larger package being handled roughly. This means that the shippers must use a large amount of Styrofoam or other packaging materials just to make sure the item doesn’t break, and even then, it still breaks. Packaging materials are an unwieldy way to ship things, and aren’t very reliable anyways, and they cause tons of pollution every day.

Issues arising: Credit card theft / fraud or identity theft is large risk. How do we prevent it? There are some steps that we can take to not be deceived so easily. One of them is to use PayPal. PayPal is a security system often used when shopping online. It combines more security with a tighter regulation. The best regulation there is; if the buyer asks for a refund, you must give it, even if the buyer doesn’t give the item back, but has some basic proof that the item is broken, which is a very good policy. The other rules also are very helpful when shopping online and using a website that supports PayPal is one of the best ways to buy online. Also, you should always use your credit card or at least use it as often as possible when you’re shopping online because credit cards offer the most security features over other forms of payment.

Online shopping is a great way to shop, but is still improving, as it progresses further on. Its advantages and disadvantages vary, but the disadvantages can definitely be improved if we (as shoppers) are more careful. First of all, we can take the precautions against credit card theft, Instead of buying new items with packaging, buy items that are “used, but like new” to save the environment. If we provide more customer support, we can make reliability better and make shopping online better overall.




edit: Mr gazen said it was horrible! GASP!