Online shopping information systems are electronic systems, which allow different customers to buy various items from sellers through the internet. The online systems provide an interface where an interested customer visits the retailer’s website and chooses a given product of interest.
There are some features of interest in a properly designed online shopping platform, which makes it effective in performing the intended tasks. First, it is necessary for the online shopping system to give comprehensive details for the products on sale including availability and specific features such as prices and quality. The system should allow customers full access to the website to assess it and its products regarding quality and related features.
Today, with the increasing technological advancement, online shopping is gaining popularity among many shoppers in all corners of the world. Also, online shopping has raised safety concerns in equal measures to its increasing use. Many technology experts are worried about the safety of the shoppers using online tools because most of the tools require their personal data. Giving personal data to online platforms poses security risk to the shoppers since the information may be used in malicious activities such as hacking the customer’s account in the online shopping system. Therefore, it is necessary to subject the available online shopping tools to proper assessment to understand their operations and all the related concepts.
Growth of Online Shopping Programs
The advancement in technology has resulted in the increase of online shopping programs to satisfy the ever-increasing demands from customers. Also, the world’s population is steadily growing, which means steady increase in various products. The notable increase in the revenues collected from the available online shopping tools has motivated technology experts to develop more online shopping tools. Also, the online shoppers have been studied and classified in four major classes.
The first class is convenience shoppers who buy online due to the high convenience of the tools. The second class is a variety of shoppers who buy online due to the overwhelming varieties in the online shopping systems. The third class is the balanced buyers who are busy and find it reasonable to buy online to balance their duties.
The last class is store-oriented buyers who buy online because of the many products available in the store. All the stated classes of online customers are motivated by the time and convenience of the online shopping tools.
In general, online services tend to be much more ethical and more eco-friendly. Providing customers with legitimate and high-quality assistance is one of the best examples of such development. These days college students can receive help with research papers in a variety of topics both for free and at an affordable price. They can find quality academic samples online and use them as guidance to write their own assignments. They also can find a reliable website providing essay writing services online. SmartWritingService – paper writing services are famous for hiring the most productive, professional and experienced essay writers in the market. Addressing such an agency totally answers requirements for safe and confidential consumer’s experience.
Behavior of Customers in Digital Shopping Environment
According to Li & Luhu (2014), the behavior of many online shoppers is not based on the brand and retailers offering their target products online. Also, the various recommendations from online reviewers do not influence the decision of the online buyers to buy a given product. Most online shoppers use their phones and other devices to gather the necessary information.
It is notable that online shopping results in a considerable effect on the perception of the customers. In online platforms, there is increased interaction among customers, which influences their buying decisions. Another significant factor, which affects the behavior of customers in the digital shopping environment, is risk and the trust. The risk is high in digital shopping as compared to off-line shopping.
There are additional factors, which determine the behavior of customers in digital shopping environments. One, in online shopping, customers cannot check the selected product to know if it can satisfy their needs before purchasing it. Secondly, many customers are concerned with the available guarantee of the after sales services. Another factor influencing the behavior of customers in online shopping is that many customers are afraid because they do not understand the language, which the e-sellers used in describing the product and the terms of buying it. Therefore, the stated factors are likely t o influence the behavior of the customers in the digital shopping environment. Also, the factors may increase the risk in the online buying process, which has a significant influence in the behavior of customers.
Product Selection
Most online shopping tools are designed to allow customers to visit the website of their target retailers to select, among the many products, a product. Also, there are several search engines, which can assist a customer to search alternative vendors of a given product. After a customer finds the product of interest, in most of the online shopping systems, they have cart software for shopping, which allows the customer to accumulate many products of choice.
The cart software is designed for those customers who need several items from the online shopping platform. After choosing the needed items, “checkout” process follows the step, where the payment and related details about delivery are collected. Some of the online shopping systems provide their customers with an option of creating a permanent account, where their details are fed once. After completing the process, a customer is alerted through email on the status of transaction and processing of the selected product.
Payment
The online shopping tools provide the customer with a payment option, where the customers do the payment for the selected product. Most shoppers online prefer to pay for their products using PayPal or other common online payment methods such as a credit card. For the online system for shopping, which allows their customer to create personal accounts, they allows the customers to use alternative payment methods of their convenience such as check, cash on delivery among others. It is necessary for the provided payment option to guarantee the safety of transacted money and the details of the customer. Therefore, the payment options should meet the safety standards set by the various international online transaction authorities.
Product Delivery
After completing the payment for the selected products, the retailer may deliver the product in many ways. One of the common delivery options is shipping the selected product to a given customer’s address. Alternatively, the retailer may decide to use in-store pick-up method, which allows the customer to pick the product from a local store of choice after using a software locator to identify the local store. For digital products, the customer has the option to download or print them.
Design
It is necessary for the designer of the online shopping system to consider some factors in the work. First, the system should be designed with attractive features to the customers such as offering broader selection of products. Secondly, the design should ensure high convenience of the target operations of the customers. It is essential for the design of the online system to offer competitive pricing to the customers to survive the highly competitive online business.
Also, the access to information should be enhanced in the design to help in catching more customers. Most retailers prefer the use of online shopping tools because of their low cost of operation, especially when handling international customers. Online shopping systems are one of the ways to access a global market in the modern world. Therefore, the design of the online shopping system should increase the value of the customer to ensure survival in the competitive online environment.
Information Load
The designers of the online shopping system should consider the impacts of the information load on the customers. Information load can be defined as the temporal organization of information of stimuli or responses in the online shopping system. The information about a particular product should be comprehensive enough to convince the customer to buy.
Also, the design should consider giving the customer alternatives to the selected product. Information load has some major dimensions including novelty and complexity. The novelty incorporates the emerging issues in online shopping, which are usually unexpected. On the other hand, complexity includes the features of the online shopping site, which offered diverse information.
Generally, the information provided for the customers and other interested parties in the online shopping systems should be satisfactory and genuine. The availability of the information helps in keeping the business reputation of the retailer and increases the chances of keeping more customers for survival in the competitive online shopping business.
Customer Demands and Expectations
Online shoppers usually have some specific demands and expectations from online shopping systems. The customers expect the design of the online system to build strong relationships with them. Also, the design should give a positive impression, which is a motivating factor for the customer to continue using the online service again. Other factors, which may help the online shopping system to keep potential customers, include high efficiency in the design, reasonable convenience, and personalized services.
User Interface
The user interface of an online shopping system should portray easy to use features and attractive display for the customer, which convinces them to make purchases. The interface should allow the customer to access the inner details of their selected products and offer comparison from alternative vendors. The contact information of the vendors should be included in the user interface to allow physical contact for the interested customers because the physical contact increases the understanding and gain the trust of most customers.
Advantages
The idea of development of online shopping systems has several advantages in the modern world and it has boosted many businesses in the world. The online shopping systems offer unique convenience for the customers all over the world to make their purchases for various items. The convenience comes from the 24-hours availability of the stated online systems and the fact that many people have access to the internet today.
Another advantage of any online shopping system is the provision of adequate information and reviews for their products through texts and photos, which is beyond most off-line retail stores. Also, the online shopping systems give a comparison of the various vendors of a given product for the customer to make a decision, which makes it easy to compare prices and select the best item among the many brands.
Online shopping systems require less time to do shopping and are quick compared to offline shopping. The inclusion of security features in the online shopping systems to meet the standard security requirements has made them secure, which motivates the customers to use them. Lastly, most online shopping systems, with an option for the customers to create personal accounts, guarantee privacy. The information about the customers is kept safe from illegal access and possible misuse.
Disadvantages
Online shopping systems, like any other thing, have their disadvantages. First, the online shopping systems are prone to fraud and other issues related to security concerns. The advancement in technology has resulted in increasing in the hacking cases with a hacker using sophisticated tools to break the online systems.
Also, the customer using online shopping systems risks in getting false information reading their products of interest. The actual product may not match the description given in the online platform, which the customer only discovers after purchasing the item.
Another possible risk from using the online shopping system is hidden costs. Most online shopping tools show the price of the products without additional costs for shipping and delivery operations. Therefore, the customer may not know the actual amount needed to have a particular product. There is rising privacy concern regarding the use of online shopping systems since most require personal information to facilitate delivery of products. The personal information exposes the customer to many risks such as abuse of the personal data and use in illegal activities. Also, customers risk losing money in the online shopping platform in case of hackers, who may invade the system and compromise its intended operations.
Final Words
It is remarkable that online shopping systems have increased the convenience for many customers to buy various items online and access the global market through their internet connections. Also, the use of advanced security tools in the modern online shopping systems have made online shopping secure and booming business. However, it is deducible that the designer of online shopping systems should explore more about reliable security tools and include them in their designs of the shopping systems to guarantee the security of the customers.
