Do the Advantages of Shopping Online Outweigh the Disadvantages?

With the development of technology, internet had been affecting people’s life in many sides. Today I will discuss one of the most controversial problems about internet—whether people should shop online or shop at a real store. When asked about this question, many people hold the ideal that shopping online has much more benefit than shopping at a real store. As far as their concerned, shopping at a real store will cost them much time and much money. That is true.

In modern society, people have much survival pressure.

They have to hard work in order to pay rent, taxes, food and many other fees. In this case, they may spend more time on work instead of shopping outside. As a result, shopping online seems a better choice for them, because it reduces shopping time and there is almost everything that people need on the internet. However, I could not agree with them in several points. In my opinion, the disadvantages of shopping online outweigh the advantages.

In this essay, I will talk about my own opinion about the disadvantages of shopping online.

In order to support my point, I will also argue the advantages of shopping online. In the end, I will give some suggestions about shopping online. The biggest problem I thought about shopping online could be the cheat from some sellers. People cannot see and touch the goods, which mean they buy a good only by their visual feelings. This gives a chance to sellers whose products are not real good to put some nice pictures on the internet in order to attract customers.

Nowadays, fake products are normal in the market. Some conscienceless sellers use these fake products to foist customers.

They promised customers that their products were 100% real when customers ordered online; however, when they delivered products, they used the faked one. On the other hand, it is hard for customers to tell whether the products have a high quality or a low quality just by visuals. Some sellers use this chance to delivery some cheap goods with a low quality to customers so that they are able to reduce the cost of input. Moreover, some sellers do not even deliver the products although they had received pay from the customers.

All these cheating behaviors make me worry about shopping online. I concerned that whether I can get a real good that I want from sellers. Shopping online gives us more choices to choose the goods we need and like; while the problem we will face is that there are so many choices that we cannot tell which one is real we need. We always try to compare goods among different sellers. We compare them in shape, size, quality and price. But none of goods is good at every side, they are always not perfect. It gives us a hard decision to determine which one we buy.

In addition, the goods are updated quickly online. The colorful goods can make us interested in everything. Both conditions will take us much time to look at the goods and then make a tough decision. Sometimes, we may spend much more money on the goods that we are interested in but actually do not need. In these cases, we spend much time and money unconsciously. When we choose to shop online, we are also taking a risk. If people buy some products on an unsafe website or from a nonregular seller, they may not get products after transferred money as payment.

Another situation we will be faced is that some fake websites collect credit card numbers then use them for fraud. Moreover, with the development of computer knowledge of people, hackers are popular in the internet word. They steal pin numbers of customers and use these pin numbers to do something illegal. If people do not careful with their security, they may find their account lose some money one day. However, some people hold the other side of opinions of shopping online. They may say that shopping online is more convenient than shopping at a store.

Indeed, using the internet can allow us to purchase products oversea or cost us less time with shopping. However, the high shipping fees of oversea shopping may not worth the real value of the products; and as I mentioned before that too much choices of the colorful goods may cost us more time than shopping at a store. Some customers will be attracted by the low price of the goods online; however, there is a Chinese saying that “You get what you paid for”. I still believe that higher price, higher quality.

Here I would like to share some attention people need to pay when they purchase something online. First, always pick the good sellers. There are many comments about sellers’ reputation on the website and check that before make a deal with them. Second, look for a physical address and telephone contact details of sellers. Remember all the information and find the evidence of the validity of information they provided online. Third, make sure the websites used are secure before enter the credit numbers and personal information.

At last but not least, use the products’ official websites to buy the goods as much as possible. Through the above analysis, I believe that the disadvantages far outweigh its advantages since the cheating of sellers, too many choices and also the risks the customers will take. Whatever its disadvantages, we cannot ignore the benefits of shopping online. Everything has its two sides. Keep the suggestions I mentioned above in mind and think about the uses to which it is put that determine its value to our life and society.