What is Online Shopping?
Online shopping is the process where consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller in real-time without an intermediary service over the Internet.
All types of stores have retail web sites, including those that do and do not also have physical storefronts or paper catalogs. Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce used for business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions. So, why does electronic shopping exist? For customers it is not only because of the high level of convenience, but also because of the broader selection; competitive pricing and greater access to information. For businesses it increases their customer value and the building of sustainable capabilities, next to the increased profits.
In recent years, online shopping has become more and more popular. In order to shop online, a customer needs access to a computer, a bank account and a debit or credit card. Shopping has evolved with the growth of technology.
One third of people that shop online use a search engine to find what they are looking for and about one quarter find websites by word of mouth. When an online shopper has a good first experience with a certain website, sixty percent of the time they will return to that website to buy more.
Payment
Online shoppers commonly use a credit card to make 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., offered by very few online stores)
Cheque
Wire transfer/delivery on payment
Postal money order
Reverse SMS billing to mobile phones
Gift cards
Direct debit in some countries
Some sites will not allow international credit cards and for some, the billing address and shipping address have to be in the same country in which site does business. Other sites allow customers from anywhere to send gifts to anywhere in the world. The financial part of a transaction might be processed in real time (for example, letting the consumer know their credit card was declined before they log off), or might be done later as part of the fulfillment process.
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.
Drop shipping: The order is passed to the manufacturer or third-party distributor, who ships the item directly to the consumer, bypassing the
retailer's physical location to save time, money, and space.
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.
In the case of buying an admission ticket one may get a code, or a ticket that can be printed out. At the premises it is made sure that the same
right of admission is not used twice.
Shopping cart systems
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 web space.
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