In recent years, without a shadow of doubt, shopping on the internet has become remarkably popular among shoppers, which indeed has noticable environmental impacts, together with a range of implications for its job market.
From the environmental perspective, shopping online can be more energy saving when compared to traditional shopping. To illustrate this, spacious stores and malls, which necessitate excessive lighting, are no longer needed by retailers when businesses are transformed into digital. Additionally, people often surge to shops looking for the best bargains during holidays and black fridays, thus putting strain on traffic systems and causing congestion, which has an adverse effect of increasing air pollution. Online shopping, however, can cause overspending and even sometimes creates the illusion of artificial wants, leading to more intensive consumption patterns, which perhaps demand more materials and environmental resources.
Apart from that, digital shopping in the era of the social media has revolutionised retailing job opportunities. For example, neither sales assistants nor customer support representatives are required to perform their jobs in a physical manner. Nevertheless, they are more likely to respond to customers via message-based communication platforms over social media or the internet in general. Not only are the previously mentioned jobs impacted by online shopping, but those who work in shipping and packaging are also affected. Certainly, online shopping is deemed to have an increasing demand on delivery and packaging services, especially during occasions of discounts and vacations.
In conclusion, the fact that shopping online has some environmental impacts is undeniable, which can be either positive or negative. In addition, the job market of retailing and shopping has been transformed to accept different jobs and become less dependent on traditional positions.