Internet shopping is faster, convenient, and generates better deals. The concept of home shopping has been here for a long time in the form of commercial catalogues and television infomercials. But the concept of home shopping never became a widespread phenomenon until internet came due to internet’s vast potential that the pre-internet technologies lacked. Internet shopping has become an integral part of our daily lives and has been adopted by every major brick-and-mortar retailer in the U.S. Internet shopping has even helped certain companies in achieving competitive advantages because it enables them to get rid of intermediaries and sell directly to the customers.

Price

There is a higher probability of finding better prices on the internet than in shopping malls. Many internet companies operate as online retailers only which means they don’t have to pay any intermediaries such as distributors and they don’t have to hire sales people. Thus, they can pass some of the savings to the customers by offering reduced prices. Internet also enables the customers to do price comparisons in an instant, thus, they can buy from the online retailer that offers the best prices. Internet companies are aware of this thus, they price their inventory competitively. Moreover, companies get bigger audience of their products online so they often put clearance products on sale and offer other deals to clear out inventory faster. Moreover, most customers are also able to save on taxes because taxes are applicable only if the online retailer operates in the same state as the customer.

Shopping mall retailers have higher costs because not only they have to invest in physical property but they also have to hire sales people and managerial staff. Their audience is only limited to the number of visitors in the shopping mall at any time. Thus, they are forced to generate higher sales per customers which mean higher prices on the average. It’s also more expensive for the visitors to compare prices in terms of both cost and time, thus, the shopping mall customers are at a disadvantage.

Variety

Shoppers find a greater variety of products on internet websites than they do in the physical retailers. The variety of products in shopping mall stores is limited by the space available which is not a constraint for online shopping websites. The online storage space is easily expandable and quite cheap, thus, online shopping websites are able to list far more items than the physical retailers. In addition, it is a lot faster to move from one website to another than it is to move from one physical store to another. Moreover, all the websites on the internet are instantly accessible where as shopping malls can have only so many stores that stock the products we are looking for. Physical stores mainly stock the products that are in demand but online websites are not limited by space so they normally list their whole inventory. In addition, most physical retailers that also operate websites list all store inventories online, too.

Internet also enables shopping on the international websites that stock local products. Foreign products may not be available in most shopping malls because the level of demand doesn’t justify the stocking of such products. Even international retailers that operate in the U.S. mostly stock local products to meet domestic tastes. Internet is not limited by international boundaries and makes it possible to buy products from other countries without actually having to go there. One good example is Japanese shopping website called Jlist which is run by an American living in Japan and married to a Japanese woman. It offers a variety of Japanese products for shipping to the U.S. (Jlist).