Band 6+: Some people prefer to do most of their shopping online. This has both positive and negative effects for individuals, businesses and society. Are there more advantages or more disadvantages of online shopping? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

As the internet shopping technology grows, many people would rather purchase something online instead of going to the stores. While this behaviour may have a demerit, this essay would argue that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages of online shopping.

Online shopping cannot give the sense of belonging to the customers. One of the ways to attract customers into buying something is to allow them to touch or feel the goods; hence they may develop a sense of possession to the products. However, online shopping cannot provide such service in which online customers can only see and read the description and reviews of the products before buying them. This may result in some people deciding to not do online shopping because they might be afraid that the products are not as good as they expected

On the other hand, the advantages of internet shopping may vary. Firstly, for individuals, online shopping can save so much time for them to do other productive activities. Buying something from the internet means people do not have to go to the stores and buy their needs from the comfort of their homes. Secondly, for the businesses, they do not have to worry about their expenses on renting or buying establishments for their companies. The business activities can be done only from one building or warehouse. That way, they can save more money for the company development. Furthermore, online shopping can bring merit to society by catering the needs of people in an easy way. For instance, people nowadays do not have to wait in queues to purchase something since they can easily do it anywhere. As a result, the demand for some products may rise and this could positively impact the growth of the economy

In conclusion, it may be difficult for some people to do online shopping because they cannot fully trust the products. However, internet shopping may save time used to do shopping at the stores, cut the expenditure for companies to buy a building and cater the needs of society in an easy way. Therefore, the advantages of online shopping outweigh the disadvantages.