Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet without an intermediary service. An online shop, eshop, e-store, Internet shop, webshop, webstore, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or shopping centre. The process is called business-to-consumer (B2C) online shopping. When a business buys from another business it is called business-to-business (B2B) online shopping.
Customers
Online customers must have access to a computer and a method of payment.
In general, higher levels of education, income, and occupation of the head of the household correspond to more favorable perceptions of non-store shopping. Also, increased exposure to technology increases the probability of developing favorable attitudes towards new shopping channels.
In a December 2011 study Equation Research found that 87% of tablet users made an online transaction with their tablet device during the early holiday shopping season.
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:
* Billing to mobile phones and landlines
* Cash on delivery (C.O.D., offered by very few online stores)
* Cheque/ Check
* Debit card
* Direct debit in some countries
* Electronic money of various types
* Gift cards
* Postal money order
* Wire transfer/delivery on payment
Some sites will not accept international credit cards, some require both the purchaser's billing address and shipping address to be in the same country in which site does its business, and still other sites allow customers from anywhere to send gifts anywhere. 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.
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 webspace. These systems do not use an online database.
* A high end solution can be bought or rented as a standalone program or as an addition to an enterprise resource planning program. It is usually installed on the company's own webserver and may integrate into the existing supply chain so that ordering, payment, delivery, accounting and warehousing can be automated to a large extent.
* Other solutions allow the user to register and create an online shop on a portal that hosts multiple shops at the same time.
* Open source shopping cart packages include advanced platforms such as Interchange, and off the shelf solutions as Avactis, Satchmo, osCommerce, Magento, Zen Cart, VirtueMart, Batavi and PrestaShop.
* Commercial systems can also be tailored to one's needs so the shop does not have to be created from scratch. By using a pre-existing framework, software modules for various functionalities required by a web shop can be adapted and combined.
Online shopping
Like many online auction websites, many websites allow small businesses to create and maintain online shops (ecommerce online shopping carts), without the complexity that involved in purchasing and developing an expensive stand alone ecommerce software solutions.
shopping B2B and B2C . These were sold in the UK in the 1980s. The largest
B2B was probably Ford's Locate a Car system that operated in many European
countries. The cleverest B2B was probably Nissan who sold Finance with online
agency credit checks. The first B2C was Tesco . These systems were pre-internet
pre-windows but otherwise fully functional.
In the 1990s these systems migrated to the internet and WWW and became
fully featured, fast and secure making the pioneer systems look very ancient
indeed.
Customers
Online customers must have access to a computer and a method of payment.
In general, higher levels of education, income, and occupation of the head of the household correspond to more favorable perceptions of non-store shopping. Also, increased exposure to technology increases the probability of developing favorable attitudes towards new shopping channels.
In a December 2011 study Equation Research found that 87% of tablet users made an online transaction with their tablet device during the early holiday shopping season.
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:
* Billing to mobile phones and landlines
* Cash on delivery (C.O.D., offered by very few online stores)
* Cheque/ Check
* Debit card
* Direct debit in some countries
* Electronic money of various types
* Gift cards
* Postal money order
* Wire transfer/delivery on payment
Some sites will not accept international credit cards, some require both the purchaser's billing address and shipping address to be in the same country in which site does its business, and still other sites allow customers from anywhere to send gifts anywhere. 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.
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 webspace. These systems do not use an online database.
* A high end solution can be bought or rented as a standalone program or as an addition to an enterprise resource planning program. It is usually installed on the company's own webserver and may integrate into the existing supply chain so that ordering, payment, delivery, accounting and warehousing can be automated to a large extent.
* Other solutions allow the user to register and create an online shop on a portal that hosts multiple shops at the same time.
* Open source shopping cart packages include advanced platforms such as Interchange, and off the shelf solutions as Avactis, Satchmo, osCommerce, Magento, Zen Cart, VirtueMart, Batavi and PrestaShop.
* Commercial systems can also be tailored to one's needs so the shop does not have to be created from scratch. By using a pre-existing framework, software modules for various functionalities required by a web shop can be adapted and combined.
Online shopping
Like many online auction websites, many websites allow small businesses to create and maintain online shops (ecommerce online shopping carts), without the complexity that involved in purchasing and developing an expensive stand alone ecommerce software solutions.
History of online shopping
Online shopping was invented in the UK in 1979. There are two kinds of onlineshopping B2B and B2C . These were sold in the UK in the 1980s. The largest
B2B was probably Ford's Locate a Car system that operated in many European
countries. The cleverest B2B was probably Nissan who sold Finance with online
agency credit checks. The first B2C was Tesco . These systems were pre-internet
pre-windows but otherwise fully functional.
In the 1990s these systems migrated to the internet and WWW and became
fully featured, fast and secure making the pioneer systems look very ancient
indeed.