Why Online Shopping Beats Traditional Brick and Mortar Shopping

Why Online Shopping Beats Traditional Brick and Mortar Shopping

Introduction

According to Forrester Research (US Online Retail Forecast, 2009 to 2014), online retail sales will grow 10 percent a year for the next five years, accounting for 53 percent of all retail sales in the United States by 2014. Internet shopping growth is outpacing overall retail growth, which is only projected to increase by two and a half percent in 2010. With today’s busy lifestyles, there are many reasons why online shopping beats traditional brick and mortar shopping; the three main reasons for this are lower cost, convenience, and selection.

In the current economic crunch, consumers are looking to cut back spending costs in any way they can. The innovation of shopping online for products previously purchased at brick and mortar stores has proven to save consumers a substantial amount of money. Consumers are always going to be driven by price and with online stores having a much lower overhead, it only makes sense that they are able to sell the same products for less than traditional brick and mortar stores. Online stores keep their costs down by having fewer employees and by not needing a storefront with a mortgage. Online companies have lower profit margins on products, ship for cheap, and frequently offer payment plans for purchases. Shopping online does not have any additional fees associated with it, and online retailers often offer consumers a wide variety of payment options including financing in most cases. When purchasing through an online store, consumers have the option of paying with credit card, debit card, electronic check, financing, or even PayPal. PayPal is an e-commerce business that handles secure funds transfer from a consumer to a business without sharing vital information, such as credit card and bank account numbers, between the two parties. While brick and mortar stores struggle to stay in business, online companies are thriving on low...