Positive and Negative Aspects of Selling Products Online and Offline

This report explores the positive and negative aspects of selling products online and offline. It discusses the challenges and measures of security and privacy when going online. It also compares online services based on different aspects and explores digital communication skills.

Integrated Professional
Skills

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Compare and contrast between the positive and negative aspects of services and products
being sold online and offline..................................................................................................3
Discuss the challenges and measures of security and privacy that individuals and business
take when they go online........................................................................................................5
Compare and contrast online services on the basis of different aspects.................................6
Digital communication skills..................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Technology plays an important role as it directly impact on the choice and preferences of
customers. Nowadays, technology is changing rapidly and impact on the overall buying
behaviour as customers like to consume and buy those products as well as services, which is new
or innovative in market. The companies are now shifted to online offerings due to innovation in
technology and preference of customers. Providing the goods and service though online medium
help company to reach maximum number of people and enhance their productivity and
profitability level. For the present report, Marks and Spencer is taken into consideration. The
company specialize in offering quality clothes and food products. It offer product in more than
12 countries by both offline as well as online medium. Its managers make use of advanced
technology so that they can offer new and quality products in market that help in attaining
competitive advantage at marketplace. The report covers positiveand negative aspect of selling
products. In addition to this, the challenges faced by company in offering product online is
described in the report.
MAIN BODY
Compare and contrast between the positive and negative aspects of services and products being
sold online and offline.
At this world of digitalization, where people are more moving towards setting up their
business online as they saves much costs at the online platforms. Every business now and then is
setting up their operations at online platform. As in the case with marks and Spencer the
company operates at both online and offline base. The company does show all its products at
online platform which enable the people to look at the products and make a purchase. There are
many positive aspects to run the business online and these are as follows:
Global access: The online platform sites help the customers and the business to get a global
access for the site. Here the customers can visit the site 24 * 7. Online platforms allow
flexibilities to the customers so that they do not have to visit to the stores and they can place
order irrespective to the places or time they are putting order. Websites at online platform has a
merit that they can be get visited at any hour and from any place (Sonck, Kuiper And de Haan,
2012). Now the people do not have to make time from their busy schedule to go for stores or

malls to purchase the products. They can avail the services and but the products through online
now.
Improved customer service through greater flexibility: The business can give more services
through flexibility in their operations. Some sites has the options for giving gifts in which the
customers can buy the products to gift it to someone else. The company would wrap that product
for that person and would make it very much presentable for him. Apart from this, the businesses
also provide the delivery services in which the products would get delivered at their door steps.
Cost savings: Business can save a huge cost when they operate at online platform. Their cost for
warehouse, store, work force, store electricity, maintenance cost and other cost has been saved
through this (Van Deursen and van, 2014). When a business would be able to saves its cost, the
profits margin for the business automatically would get increased.
Faster delivery of products: The customers experience faster delivery for their products.
Normally the customer would get its ordered products within 3-4 days which is already pre-
informed to the customers. The customers also have the opinion of one day or next day delivery
for which they have to pay extra price as a delivery charges.
Less paper waste: The online platform has helped the society into the reduction of paper work
which has saved the paper to a very extent. All the work has been performed electronically now
which was done earlier at papers. Also maintaining a paper work is a tough job especially when a
business has a lot of transactions in a particular day. The same case applies with marks and
Spencer. The company saved a lot of paper work via launching them at online platform sites.
Apart from positive aspects there are many negative aspects also which a business faces
by launching their business at online platforms. Some of them are as follows:
Privacy: When an individual places the order at the online platform, he enters his personal
information in it to get the item or the product delivered to him. Some people also choose
prepaid method where they paid for the item via their banks or money wallet, this activity has a
demerit that this personal and private information about the customer which he should not have
to share with anybody get saves. This information can get hacked by anybody and can be used by
somebody else. This is always a huge disadvantage of online shopping.
Price wars: As now all the businesses are coming at the online platform they all can cut their
prices or cost which benefits them as they can now provide the products or the services at lower
prices to the customers. But this has started creating a war of prices where the business provides

his products at lower prices to their customers to attract them. This price war only has benefited
the customers but not the companies. The same is the case with marks and Spencer; the company
experiences the price wars which it faced online as its other competitors are also reducing their
prices of products to attract the customers (Walker, Bowkett and Duchaine, 2018).
Returns and complaints: In case of online the customer can’t touch or see the product
physically; he only does that when that product arrives at his home. But if the product which is
been ordered by the customer does not get liked by him then again he have to return the product
which ordered for the next one which is generally a time consuming process.
Discuss the challenges and measures of security and privacy that individuals and business take
when they go online.
Doing business operations is also a matter for concern for security and privacy for both
the business and for customers. Both these parties go through many challenges when it comes to
security and privacy. Some of these challenges are as follows:
Fear of hackers: The businesses many a times have to be very much aware about the hackers
which can hack their website and can use their information for some evil purposes. The hackers
can use the information of their customers also which includes their banking details. Therefore
majority of the people still prefers to buy from stores rather than online as they have the fear of
using and leaking their personal information which is very important to them.
Click jacking: Click jacking is when a user click on some ads or any other site but that site does
not appear which it was seem like. In this the manipulator manipulates the user and attacks him
as soon as he opens up the site. With the click jacking the attackers can easily control the system
which also includes the hardware like microphones, camera and all to record the activities.
De-anonymization Attacks: In this all the activities of the user gets monitor by the attackers.
Here all the sites which he has been visited, the time which he spends on each site and etc are
being noticed and observed. Through this the attacker can know about the attitude, behavior,
taste, choices and preferences of the user (Pagani, Argentin, Gui and Stanca, 2016). A huge study
can be done through this process on knowing about the current trends which is prevailing among
customers or in the society.
Fake profiles: Some businesses also make fake profiles to make their sites more impressing.
From these sites the customers gets attracted and purchase the products without knowing about
the authenticity of these sites. And one the customer has made a profile into their site; his

information would easily get leaked and can be misused by the others which would create a
problem for the user as well.
Identity clone attacks: Profile cloning can be performed by an assailant utilizing robbery
qualifications from a previously existing profile, making another phony profile while utilizing
taken private data. These attacks are known as character clone attacks the taken qualifications
can be utilized inside a similar system or across various systems. The aggressor can utilize the
trust of the cloned client to gather substance from their friends or perform various kinds of online
extortion.
Location Leakage: The location-leakage danger is a kind of information leakage. There is a
pattern for different clients to get to an interpersonal organization through cell phones.
Generally, applications are utilized to get to an online source through a cell phone. The
utilization of cell phones for online access presents the new protection danger of location
leakage. The utilization of cell phones for online access urges clients to share their location data.
There are various measures also which has been adopted by both the business and the
individuals to save themselves from these challenges; some of them are as follows:
Anti- virus software: The individual or the business should have insert the antivirus software
into his system to protect themselves from the unknown entry of any another party. This software
helps in making the user system safe and protect from any kind of unauthorized entry.
Authentic site: individual should be educated enough that they can differentiate between the
authentic and unauthentic sites so that they does not access to these sites that hampers their
personal information (Flew, Martin and Suzor, 2019). An authentic site would claim full privacy
to the individuals who have visited it or have made an account which does not get provided by
these unauthentic sites.
Compare and contrast online services on the basis of different aspects
Currently, entire world is suffering with the issue of COVID19. Due to which, the business
of numerous firms are impacted in unfavourable manner (Smith, 2018). To provide needed and
health essentials, organisations turning their businesses to offer online services. Different
business firms also use some application to run business activities and operations in effective
manner. There are different applications like Zoom, Go to Meeting, Team viewer, WebEx etc.

Zoom- It is cloud based video conferencing tool where the people can host calls with
others. With the assistance of this application, business venture make contact with its employees,
share information and make video call in form of organising meeting and conference.
Team viewer- It is a proprietary software application for remote control, destocks sharing,
online meetings, web conferencing and file transfer among computers. In present time, due to
issue of COVID19, business firms use this application to make context with their workforce with
the option of work from home.
Basis Zoom Team viewer
Features This application is easy
adoption with WebRTC
technique. The main feature
of this app is that employees
can join from anywhere or
any devise. This app support
for up to 1000 video
participants and 49 videos.
This tool access extra
features like chat, phone and
webinars (Bilyalova,
Salimova and Zelenina,
2019).
This application has number
of features that are able to
support a company to operate
its business. The application
is remote support, remote
administration, remote
access, online meeting, able
to provide training session
and online teamwork etc. By
using this application, a firm
can transfer files on another
system.
Applications This app can be used by
businesses to share
information to other
employees, to make video
call and organise meeting
and conference. Apart from
this, the company can use it
to chat with workforce and
sharing screen with other
workforce (Pianta, 2018).
The respective application
enables to eternally contact
and administrate unattended
Android devices to resolve
issues quickly from
anywhere and anytime. This
tool able to access computer
over LAN, WAN or the
internet. This application
also able to access mobile

devices and with the help of
it, the employees can share
information, attend training
session, meetings and
conferences with their
mobile phones.
Sustainability This application is
sustainable because by
utilising this application, the
company can operate its
business in current situation
of COVID19. Sustainability
is always the goal of this app
and this application has
definitely cut down travel
time and help in minimising
carbon footprints as well
which is the great
sustainability of this tool.
This app is sustainable
because employees can use it
in Android devices and this
makes easy to use this
application.
This application is
sustainable in current
situation of COVID19.
Because due to this issue and
pandemic most of companies
operate their business by
offering option of work from
home to their employees. So
by using this tool, they make
contact with their workforce,
arranging meetings and
conferencing. This is
sustainable as it providing
companies a way to cut the
atmospheric impact and
expense of travel (Walker,
Bowkett and Duchaine,
2018).
Digital communication skills
Digital communication include a company’s online communication efforts in order to
increase their sales and provide relevant information in the market about their products and
services. Many of the organisation use online channels and some have their own application so
that they can easily connect with the current customers and potential customers as well. In order
to use online channels for offering products, companies are required to have digital professionals

who have the knowledge about technology and development of online brand. In addition to this,
there are various social media applications that allow company to aware maximum number of
people towards the brand that directly leads to increase in customer base and sales of the
organisation. The digital communication skills are as follows:
Flexibility:Technology is changing rapidly and continuously and for this it is essential for
managers who thrive in digital communication should be highly flexible. In addition to this,
adapting changes will help company to decline the level of risk and issues associated with the
changes in technology. In relation to Marks and Spencer, it has a technological team who have
up-to-date information about the technology that help company to offer products online in an
effective manner.
Passion for story telling: It is determine that product that is offered by company must
involve a string narratives as it help company to attract large number of people and earn higher
profits. Therefore, the art of story telling skill is required by Marks and Spencer in order to
increase efficiency and profitability.
Empathy: For a good communicator, it is important to have a string appreciation with the
audience as it help them to influence customer to purchase their product effectively. In addition
to this, being empathy allow a company to make a string connection with people that help in
developing a positive mind set of customers towards the product and services offered by
company.
Curiosity:It is determine that an effective digital practitioner is one who have a good
understanding of processes, people & channels of communication.This help an organisation to
know about the perception of people and fulfilment of requirement of customers as well.
From the above discussion, it has been analysed that it is important to have effective digital
communication skills in order to provide quality and proper service to customer through online
channels.
CONCLUSION
From the above study, it is concluded technology affect directly on the overall activities and
performance of an organisation. It is essential for companies to make use of innovative
technology in order to sustain in market for longer period and gain higher success as well as
development. The technology has both negative and positive aspects as it occur cost to company
due to which there is decline in the revenue level of an organisation. In addition to this, it help

company to attract large number of people and enhance their customer base level, which in turn
has positive influence in sales and profitability of an organisation. There are various challenges
faced by company while using new technology and online offerings such as data leak, security
issues and many more. It is essential for company to consider all the factors associated with
bringing of new technology in order to implement activities in an effective and proper manner.

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Online
Coronavirus: TeamViewer Sees Demand for Home-Working Options. 2020. [Online]. Available
Through: <https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/coronavirus-teamviewer-sees-demand-for-home-
working-options-2178467>.