Online Shopping: Evolution, Ethical Issues, Advantages, Disadvantages, Impact on Retail Stores and Future

This study explores the evolution of online shopping, ethical issues associated with it, advantages and disadvantages, impact on retail stores, and the probable future of online shopping.

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Integrated Management
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Executive Summary
Online shopping revolutionized the conventional shopping style and infused a touch of glamour
into it. The feasibility and the accessibility of the products over the internet empowered people to
choose from a wide range of alternatives, which was earlier not present. The retail sellers got
affected from the rise in online shopping and their revenues got hit badly which led to closure of
several big chains of shopping marts. Although, the business of online shopping is booming and
it has a prosperous future. Whereas, several innovative ideas need to keep the business booming
for another 10 to 15 years. Social networking can be utilized and the amalgamation of both the
online shopping and social networking can lead to great success. This study is based on online
shopping, how it evolved, the ethical issues associated with it, the various advantages and the
disadvantages, impact of the online stores on the retail stores and the probable future of online
shopping.

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Table of contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Introduction to online shopping.......................................................................................................4
Evolution of online shopping...........................................................................................................6
Ethical issues in online shopping.....................................................................................................9
Advantages and disadvantages of online shopping.......................................................................12
Impact of online shopping on retail stores.....................................................................................13
Future of online shopping..............................................................................................................14
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
Reference.......................................................................................................................................16

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Introduction
There was once a time when window shopping was considered as a craze, but slowly
with the advent of the internet and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) the shopping
experience gradually revolutionized. People no longer had to move from one shop to another in
search of their favorite products. Now they can sit in their home and order their products of need
and want. These products range from simple story books to big huge machines. This new craze
was termed as online shopping which made shopping feasible and accessible to people
irrespective of their geographical location. Online shopping revolutionized the conventional
shopping style and infused a touch of glamour into it. The feasibility and the accessibility of the
products over the internet empowered people to choose from a wide range of alternatives, which
was earlier not present (Shanthi & Desti, 2015). Along with the online shopping came the added
benefit of package delivery right at the door step of the consumer. This quickened up the process
and along with it a different industry gradually grew up which know as Amazon, EBay, Newegg,
Alibaba (McDermott & Payvision, 2015). This study is based on online shopping, how it
evolved, the ethical issues associated with it, the various advantages and the disadvantages,
impact of the online stores on the retail stores and the probable future of online shopping.
Introduction to online shopping
Online shopping can be defined as an activity or an action of purchasing services or
products over the internet. This in simple words means going online and searching for a seller’s
website. Then choosing any specific product or service for delivery. The buyer then pays directly
via debit or credit card over the internet or pays upon delivery. Online shopping not just include
buying but also includes searching for the product online, and also looking for the current prices.
This means that a person can effectively look for the product online, however he is not making

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any purchase. Through online shopping anything can be purchased. The online experts made a
market analysis that online shopping will gradually overtake the sales of the offline retailers.
Online shopping has some alternative terms like e-shopping which is also called electronic
shopping and the e-tailing which is a shortened term of electronic retail. Likewise, online stores
are also called by the name of virtual store, online storefront, online store, web-store, internet
shop, e-store, e-shop, e-web-store. Mobile commerce can be described as making purchases from
the mobile or hand held devices through the online retailers (Li, Dong & Chen, 2012). These
online websites are modified for the mobile viewing and the online retailer companies make
standalone apps for shopping through mobile. These soft wares and the websites are designed to
browse through the list of the brands and place orders through the computers or mobiles. The
present day online shopping is also termed as e-commerce (Laudon & Traver, 2013). Just like
the online shopping, ecommerce also means selling and buying services and products, or
transmitting data or funds or data through the electronic network, basically the internet. The
transactions that take place occur between consumers to business, consumer to consumer,
business to consumer, business to business. The terms e-business and ecommerce are often use
interchangeably. Whereas, the term e-tail is used when referencing to the transactional processes
occurring in the online shopping. The history of ecommerce can be traced back to the year 1960
when the businesses were using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in order to share the business
related documents with the other companies. American National Standards Institute introduced a
new standard to share document to share documents over the internet called the ASC X12. While
after 1980 these transactions grew in number and in the year 1990 Amazon and EBay brought a
revolution to the e-commerce industry (Pfeiffer, 2012). Thus, both enabling and empowering the
customers to purchase several different types of products online.

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Ecommerce is conducted via different applications like the web services, file transfer
protocol, electronic data interchange, shopping carts, online catalogs and email. These
applications include sending newsletters to the subscribers, sending emails to that contain
advertisement of the new products (Zhao et al., 2015). The latest trends say that the different
companies are trying to lure consumers over the internet through the social media marketing,
digital coupons and the targeted advertisements. While the benefits of the ecommerce can be
related to the 24/7 availability of speedy access of the services and the goods without any
geographical limitations. However, some of the limitations of the service include consumers not
being able to touch the product physically before making a purchase, limited consumer service
and sometime long wait for product delivery (Mohapatra, 2013).
Due to the rise in the ecommerce or online shopping, the IT professionals are forced to
move beyond just the designing the website to the other aspects of online shopping. The other
aspects include data security and the data privacy due to the innumerable number of customer’s
data on to the databases. Nowadays when the IT systems are developed, it incorporates the
important criteria of maintaining compliance with the government regulations, protection and
rules (Business.qld.gov.au, 2018).
Evolution of online shopping
The concept of online shopping came as early as 1979, when Michael Aldrich an
entrepreneur connected his TV with a computer through a phone line. This modified computer
system with a connected TV had a simple menu driven interface which later developed in to an
e-business system. This technology was termed as videotext and this creation further laid the
basis of the social networking services which became evident after 25 years. Again in the year
1980, Michael Aldrich introduced a new innovation to the world. This innovation enabled the

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service companies, suppliers, distributors, agents, customers and consumers to be connected with
the corporate business entities and facilitated the completion of business transactions
electronically. In the late 1980s, Michael Aldrich supported, maintained, installed, sold and
manufactured online shopping systems through the videotext (Khoshnampour & Nosrati, 2011).
This system also provided the handprints and the voice responses. Later on in the year 1990, Tim
Berners Lee created the first browser and a World Wide Web server, this technology later
became commercialized in the year 1991. Subsequently, innovation came pouring in in the year
1994. These innovations included the Intershop’s online shopping website, Netscape’s SSL v2
encryption that was standard for the secure transfer of the data, Pizza Hut opened up a brand new
online pizza shop, and online banking. One of the first secure online transaction was made by
internet shopping network and Netmarket in the 1994. Subsequently, both EBay and Amazon
launched their websites in the year 1995. Tmail and Taobao both the sites of Alibaba were
launched in the year 2003 and 2008. Retailers were selling goods over the internet before the
availability of the product and this was called pretail. This was done to test manage, build and
test the demand (Kumar & Maan, 2014).
Online shopping made its first touchdown in 1995 in the American market through the
hands of Amazon and EBay. Both these websites introduced a new era of online shopping that
led to the creation of a new business and the overall value of the online shopping business
touched trillions of dollars. PayPal was launched in the year 1998 and on the other hand, Jack
Ma launched Alibaba in China in the year 1999. Through a report in 2015, the ecommerce sales
were found to be leaded by China with a whopping 562 billion dollars, and was followed by the
US with 349 billion dollars (Kuah & Wang, 2017).

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There are several different online shopping websites and online merchants to choose both
the services and the products. The differences in the features offered by these different online
retailers are an important matter of interest. The online shopping is made possible only through
the websites whether it is viewed from mobile or computers. Thus, the features offered on these
websites is an important part of the discussion. Functional and large product images- product
images that shows visually detailed presentation of the product is a standard feature of all the
websites, it helps the developer and the consumer to see the product with the ability to zoom over
it (Wu et., 2013). Product reviews- through a survey it has been found that consumers find a
product when they see both the negative and positive reviews. Online shopping websites that
provide the option to comment on a particular product is an important feature that can increase
the sales and visits. The products reviews help the buyers to make more thoughtful choices
(Korfiatis, GarcíA-Bariocanal & SáNchez-Alonso, 2012). Faceted and layered navigation-
faceted and layered navigation helps the buyers or the shoppers to easily navigate and search for
the desired product. Navigation helps the products to be separated and kept in the sub categories
and the option of filtering the searches help to sort the search into desired number of products.
The extra option of segregating the products based on the price, attributes, features and color
helps the buyers to choose products based on their taste (Rástočný, Tvarožek & Bielikova,
2013). Fast checkout and single page- paying for the chosen products is the last hurdle that a
buyer wants to pass as quickly as possible. Thus, making the last step easy and hassle free for the
customers is one of the best feature that buyers should look for (Luo, Ba & Zhang, 2012).
Search- it is surprising that certain sites still do not support the searching option in their
homepage. Thus, selecting a website that supports searching makes it easy to easily navigate to
the product that a buyer is checking (Luo, Ba & Zhang, 2012). Coupons and discounts- a good

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online shopping website will incorporate the option of having discounts and coupons. This helps
the buyers to avail discounts and use their coupon codes that they have received from other
places (Sharma & Khattri, 2013).
This experiences are from the user’s side, whereas other features also contribute to a
better online shopping destination. These features include product import and export- even a
decade ago, the product do not require to be imported or exported to and fro from required
destination. The ability of an online retailer to ship product from country to another is now an
essential feature (Gessner & Snodgrass, 2015). Hassle free integration with the third party
solutions- there are different ways of building an ecommerce shopping website, this includes the
modular type of construction and this allows the easy integration of the third party solutions
(Saleh, 2012). Analytics and reporting of sales- the last but one of the most useful feature of an
online shopping website is to effectively use the built in analytics and the reporting capabilities.
This enables the users to track the sales detail of a product to a significant level and these reports
must be easy to export (Thushara & Ramesh, 2016).
Ethical issues in online shopping
When an online business or ecommerce business is run, there are certain ethical
implications that needs to be kept in mind for the effective conduct of the business. However,
these ethical concerns are an important and need to be maintained.
Online security and data theft- data theft is an important and one of the vital topic of
discussion especially within the ecommerce or online shopping websites. Breach of data takes
place every day, but the degree of the data breach is not the same everytime. Notable data
breaches in the past have occurred and it targeted the kmart, Home Depot, Sony and Michaels,

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Staples. The sale of the products over the internet is great breakthrough for the retail business.
The online shopping brought a big relief for the consumers and the way they choose to shop.
Online shopping created an opportunity for the shoppers to directly connect with the sellers.
Selling online is a novel way to bypass all the hassles of opening a wide range of shopping stores
over different geographical areas. Seller bear the responsibility towards the customers. These
online shopping companies must ensure that ecommerce related transaction do not result in
security breaches or data theft (Chakraborty et al., 2016). The reason for such an emphasis on the
data security is because a lot of serious information is accumulated during the online
transactions. The several sensitive information includes: credit card numbers; personal
information like phone numbers, emails and address; purchase history (especially important for
the purchase of the sensitive products). Hackers especially are able to damage the customers
through the misuse of the data. These precautionary steps are mandatory for keeping the trust of
the buyer. Violation of consumer protection laws can lead to serious consequences. Data
protection and prevention of the security breaches can be effectively dealt through the effective
implementation of the usage of HTTP/SSL for the ecommerce related websites that deal with the
sensitive information; adherence to the PCI compliance guidelines; only storage of the customer
data that are mandatory; protection of the buyer’s data through an extra layer of defense; usage
of the trusted platforms for the purpose of data storage and financial transactioWang & Zhang,
2013).
Accurate product listing- from the traditional retail, ecommerce is different. The buyers
are unable to touch products when they are placing the orders. Buyers only look at the pictures
and the videos shows the product in the ideal lighting conditions. These include artistic touch
through the Photoshop and the light room. At the same time, the product descriptions either

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speak a ton or speak very little about the product. Thus, online shopping customers do not see the
actual product before they receive the product. Within a store, customers take the items off the
shelf and carry the same to the register. Whereas, the ecommerce transaction is instead speaking
of sending the delivery. Thus, the entire responsibility falls on the sellers to effectively list the
products honestly, completely and accurately (Dai, Forsythe & Kwon, 2014). The sellers can
effectively make the customers happy through delivering products before the delivery time,
usage of the nice packaging materials and small freebies. However, doing the opposite can
surprise the customers negatively. If the delivered products do not maintain the quality and
deliver products that are of low quality, and not accurate. This will disappoint the customers and
probably the customers might shift to other websites. For a majority of the online shopping
websites, providing inaccurate data on the website is inappropriate. This often result when
inexperienced people handle data and unable to manage the data effectively. Providing
inappropriate product description can result into issues like bad customer feedback. Thus,
tracking and collecting information from the negative feedback from the customers and timely
rectification can result in effective management of the issues (Weathers, Swain & Grover, 2015).
Following the online selling laws- it is always essential for an individual or a business to
follow the laws and work accordingly. There are certain laws that need to follow to avoid any
major issue. These laws are: product-specific regulations; international regulations that are
country specific; online marketing laws like laws on advertising disclosure and CAN-SPAM act;
tax regulations, privacy laws and the data compliance laws (Kigerl, 2015).
Selling counterfeit products- the sellers must check the products they are selling.
Although it is not possible to check each and every product before delivery. The manufacture

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should be able to designate that a product is safe. Sellers must act with the trusted suppliers that
will minimize any compromise in the quality (AR, 2012).
Advantages and disadvantages of online shopping
Advantages of online shopping- Customers have the comfort of placing order from their
homes and also from their work places. Shopping is made convenient and easier for the buyers
through the usage of internet and the best part is that, transactions can be cancelled ay time. The
other benefits of online shopping include: wide range and variety of products that are available
online; lower prices and good discounts; detailed information regarding the products; various
brands and models can be compared; save the effort and the time. It is seen generally that the
sales representatives try to convince, persuade and influence the buyers. Thus a pressure remains
over the buyers and are unable to look for their desired products. However, the purchasing
products through the online stores in a relaxed way. Online shopping saves the precious time that
are wasted during standing in a queue. The buyers do not need to reach a particular in order to
purchase the products. One of the major benefit is that customers can enter the name of the
product either into the search engine or to the search section of the online shopping website, in
order to receive the desired results (Hsu, Chuan-Chuan Lin & Chiang, 2013). Companies display
a wide range of products that are available for the customers to compare and contrast. The
customers look for the products that suit their needs and tastes and thus the wide range of options
provide a wide range of options. The comparisons can be made based on the features that are
displayed and also based on the prices of the products. In comparison to the malls, the online
shopping websites remains open for the 24/7. Thus, be it night or day, the online shopping
website remains accessible for the entire time period. In order to attract the online customers, the
shopping websites provides discounts on a wide range of products to the customers. Sometimes,

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the shopping sites also offer comparisons of the different stores available. Another best
advantage is the ability of the customer to track the packaging to shipment and delivery of the
product (Jusoh & Ling, 2012).
Disadvantage of online shopping- lack of the proper management of the inventory and
the long duration of the delivery. Although the process of ordering a product can take about 15
minutes, whereas the delivery of the product may take 1 to 3 weeks depending on the
geographical location. This prevents the customers from using the online shopping websites and
frustrates them. In comparison to the offline retailers, the online shopping websites don not
provide the requisite amount of discount (Richa, 2012). Although, online shopping websites have
the several advantages. The major drawback is that inability of the customer to touch the product
physically before making the purchase. The offline stores provide the feasibility of making
negotiation with the seller, whereas in online shopping websites the prices are fixed. It has been
seen that there are fraudulent websites that dupe the customers and take away the money. Online
payments through the online payment gateways are sometimes not secured and thus raises the
security concerns. E-commerce websites must pay attention to the increasing issues related to the
cybercrimes in order to boost the online shopping. Conventionally, before making a purchase
customers look through the products and only after a close examination attempts to make the
purchase (Kacen, Hess & Chiang, 2013).
Impact of online shopping on retail stores
It is a well-known fact that global market leaders in the e-commerce or the online
shopping websites include the Amazon, EBay and the Alibaba. Some of the market researchers
have found that in the coming years, the traditional retail industry will more customers to the
online retailers. Several offline retailers are now facing bankruptcies due to the lack of customers

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visiting their stores. The overbuilding of stores has made this shrinking an excessively more
competitive for the survival of the smaller retail stores (Agarwal & Durga, 2016). This have not
only affected the smaller players but also the bigger chain of stores is now facing shutdown. The
investors that previously used to invest money on to the offline retail stores are now moving
away and looking for the newer opportunities in the online retailers. Conducting retail business
requires opening up of stores over a wide range of places. This is sometimes costly and a time
consuming issue which encompass the huge operating costs due to the rent, utilities, electricity
and security. Walmart a big retail seller reported to have incurred losses in which their revenues
decreases by 0.75 percentage. The company also faced issues outside North America which
included the South Korea and Germany (Cost, 2016).
Future of online shopping
The future of online shopping is bright although it may require newer innovation and
features to keep the business afloat. The present day e-commerce website can further face
competition from the offline rivals like Walmart. Because, these offline giants will adapt the
online selling strategies and will provide products that will compete with the like of Amazon and
EBay (Harvard Business Review, 2018). The other options that are available for the online giants
is to utilize the social media for the promotion of the newly launched products. The offline giants
that were restricted to the offline retailing will take on the social media for the effective
promotion and induction in to the online scope. The social media can be taken as a platform for
the selling and buying of products that will use the added advantage of person to person
interaction (Grewal, Roggeveen & Nordfält, 2017).

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Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion, it can be concluded that online shopping is boon for a
wide range of individuals that exhibit different needs. The fame and craze of online shopping
started with the online sellers selling books, whereas now online shopping can even deliver
products like bulldozer or a car. The retail sellers got affected from the rise in online shopping
and their revenues got hit badly which led to closure of several big chains of shopping marts.
Although, the business of online shopping is booming and it has a prosperous future. Whereas,
several innovative ideas need to keep the business booming for another 10 to 15 years. Social
networking can be utilized and the amalgamation of both the online shopping and social
networking can lead to great success.

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