Makalah Bahasa Inggris: Arti dan Contohnya

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Nowadays, online shopping has become a very favored shopping method in society. With the growth of technology and the support of the internet, many people prefer to shop online due to its convenience rather than the conventional method of going to stores. Merchants can easily sell all their products via the internet and shoppers can find a variety of items from clothing, households, books, medicine, and a lot more stuff in online markets from home. According to data from Statista (2019), approximately 1,92 billion people from around the world purchased goods online in 2019 and with the steady rise of the total number of online shoppers worldwide from 2014 until 2019, over 2.14 billion people are expected to buy goods online in 2021. In spite of its numerous advantages, online shopping still has a few disadvantages that many people complain about. Thus, this paper is made to examine both the positive and negative aspects of online shopping.

1.2 Problem Formulation

1. What are the positive aspects of online shopping?
2. What are the negative aspects of online shopping?

1.3 Purpose of the Paper

1. To define the circumstances that exist at the moment, specifically about online shopping.
2. To examine the positive aspects of online shopping.
3. To examine the negative aspects of online shopping.

DISCUSSION

2.1 The Definition of Online Shopping

According to Oxford Languages, online shopping can be defined as the action or activity of buying goods or services via the internet. The steps included in online shopping are all done with the help of the internet and technology. They may consist of going online, landing on an e-commerce platform or a seller’s website, selecting something that you want to buy and arranging for its delivery to your place. The buyer will either pay for the products or service online with a credit or debit card, e-wallet, or upon delivery.

2.2 The Positive Aspects of Online Shopping

1. Saving time and effort

Many people have switched their shopping method into online shopping for its convenience. Barry et al. (2002) and Seiders et al. (2007) define “service convenience” as consumers’ time and effort perceptions in relation to purchasing or using a service (as cited in Jiang et al., 2013, p. 193). Online shopping offers us the opportunity to shop at all times in any day without having to go into stores. Of course, this would save our time and effort. We can surf into online stores and purchase goods from the comfort of our own home. Neither we have to spend all day asking about prices of the products nor stand in queues to pay for the products, otherwise, we can shop while sitting comfortably at our own home, watching our favorite movie or enjoying our coffee in the living room. Purchasing goods via the internet becomes a very easy task to do.

2. Wider variety of Items

Online markets provide a wider variety of items. We can find any product from any brand around the world and there are a large number of options available for every product from clothing, books, toys, furniture, movie tickets, cosmetics, and a lot more. Quan and Williams (2017) stated there is huge recognition that as economies advance, consumers take advantage of increasing access to variety and the internet has given consumers access to an astonishing level of variety. Data from National Public Radio shows 84% of online shoppers in the U.S preferred to shop online because it gives them a better product selection (Finances Online, 2020). In addition, there are no national or international barriers in online shopping as we can purchase goods from the merchants in another part of our country, or even world. 

2.3 The Negative Aspects of Online Shopping

1. What you see is not always what you get

Even though there are innumerable products available in online stores, we don’t always know exactly what we are getting as we can’t touch, feel, or try the products displayed in the online stores. Some products may look good in online displays but are somewhat different in real life. We can only size up the products by seeing the pictures or considering the reviews given by other shoppers. It obviously creates concerns on the quality and appearances of the products offered that sometimes leads to dissatisfactions. For example, when you want to purchase clothes, although there is a size chart provided, sometimes it isn’t quite accurate that the real products may be slightly smaller or bigger and eventually it doesn’t fit you very well. In other cases, the color blue might turn out to be green, the material that looks expensive might turn out to be cheap and uncomfortable. A broad-based study of retailers and consumers worldwide conducted by researchers at Pitney Bowes found that nearly half of online shoppers from around the world were unhappy with their online shopping experience. Regarding online holiday shopping, half of consumers stated the overall experience did not meet their expectations and was fraught with a variety of issues. Authors of the Pitney Bowes Global E-commerce Study said that retailers still have a long way to go toward meeting consumer expectations, particularly when it comes to the post-purchase experience for online shoppers (Zaczklewlcz, 2017).

2. Risk of frauds

Online shoppers may have a risk of frauds while shopping online. There are a huge number of fake online stores on the internet. In most of the cases, they will trick you to purchase products when there are actually no products to be sold. In other cases, they will hack your identity and credit cards as most of the online stores involve credit cards to fulfill their payment method. There have been so many incidents where online shoppers spent their money on online shopping for nothing, they never got what they purchased. Worstly, most of the fake online stores will disappear after they trick their customers so the customers can’t ask for a refund. Debby Guerra, the executive vice president of ACI Worldwide, the Universal Payment (UP) Company said during the recent condition of the uncertain times in 2020, many more people prefer to purchase products or services via online. Along with that, a research of hundreds of millions of transactions from online global retailers conducted by ACI Worldwide shows that the fraud is also increasing as the fraudsters are taking advantage of the surge in online activity to target unsuspecting consumers and retailers (ACI Worldwide, 2020).

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, even though online shopping benefits us by saving our time and efforts of going into offline stores and provides a wider variety of items to purchase, we have to be very careful considering the fraud risk we may have to take while shopping online. Shopping only in trusted and reputable online stores and looking carefully at the review given by other shoppers are the preventive ways we can do in order to avoid ourselves from dissatisfaction and frauds.

REFERENCES

ACI Worldwide, the Universal Payments (UP) company. (2020). COVID-19 Crisis Driving Changes in eCommerce Purchasing Behaviors, ACI Worldwide Research Reveals. Retrieved from https://www.aciworldwide.com/news-and-events/press-releases/2020/april/covid-19-crisis-drives-changes-in-ecommerce-sales-aci-worldwide-research-reveals

Clement, J. (2019). Global number of digital buyers 2014-2021. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/251666/number-of-digital-buyers-worldwide/.

Gilbert, N. (2020). 74 Compelling Online Shopping Statistics: 2020 Data Analysis & Market Share. Finances Online. https://financesonline.com/online-shopping-statistics/.

Jiang, L., Yang, Z., & Jun, M. (2013). Measuring consumer perceptions of online shopping convenience. Journal of Service Management, 24(2), 191-214. https://doi.org/10.1108/09564231311323962

Quan, T., & Williams, K. (2018). Product variety, across-market demand heterogeneity, and the value of online retail. The RAND Journal of Economics, 49(4), 877-913. https://doi.org/10.1111/1756-2171.12255

Zaczkiewicz, A. (2017). Nearly Half of Global Consumers Unhappy with Online Shopping Experience. WWD. https://wwd.com/business-news/retail/pitney-bowes-online-shopping-11026206/