e-Commerce

In today’s environment, use of online services for money related purposes are forever increasing. Use of sites such as Amazon and eBay are at an all time high with many users of the internet beginning to discover such sites. People are now happy to input there personal details and credit or debit card details to have the privilege of using there credit or debit card online.

Brick and Click

Many businesses now offer an online shop to partner their high street shop. Businesses offer the offline services, bricks, and online services, clicks, and some companies offer a third way of ordering, over the phone, if they do not offer this service then many of them will offer a telephone support line.

An example of bricks and clicks is when a store allows the customers to order a product through the website or order it physically in the store, once ordered customers then have a choice of getting there products delivered to their house or going to the store to pick up the product once it has been delivered to the store. A site that offers this is republic.co.uk:

There are advantages and disadvantages for both customers and the business for brick and click, advantages for the customer being that they can try on cloths or actually physically hold an item to know what it looks/feels like and the advantages for the business that, over the internet, you get a bigger audience that could possibly buy from the store. The disadvantages for the customer being that they would have to pay for postage and packaging if bought online, and for the business, having to pay for the shop building and, if they have staff, staff wages.

Online Businesses

Over the last few years, solely online businesses have become some of the biggest businesses in the world, sites like amazon.com and play.com being amongst the biggest of them. With businesses like this being the solely online they do not have a physical store where people can go and try things on or generally look, this is a disadvantage for the customer and an advantage and disadvantage for the business as they do not have to pay for the building but could lose out on sales through this.

I personally use these sites often as they generally offer much cheaper prices than other stores as they have to pay for other things such as staff costs and buildings which solely online sites do not have to worry about.

The advantages for the business of this way of selling is that they do not have to pay as much money in overheads as the price of a website is much cheaper than a price of a building, another advantage would be that they can have their whole selection of products being shown on the website whereas this would not be possible in a building. The advantages for the customer would be that they are able to shop at any time of the day as the website is open 24/7, this would be convenient for people that work during the day and possibly not being able to go shopping before or after work, it is also very good for students who maybe do not have to ability to travel to and from a shop very cheaply or maybe not even at all.

Online Banking

Online banking is becoming a very prominent way of banking in today’s world. People can use it for many different uses; they can transfer money from one account to another, look at their balance and generally manage their money more easily through this online service. Although used by millions, people still believe that online banking isn’t safe to use as they believe many things could go wrong such as, being scammed, losing their details or making a mistake causing them to lose money, this is why the majority of banking is still done in the actual bank on high streets. Online banking has become very safe and easy to use over the course of it being around, which is why people are now not so worried about using it, they realise that it is a very quick, easy and safe to use.

I personally use this service, as, for me, it is very useful for checking a balance before I buy something online, and I know that everyone in my immediate family also use this service.

Auctions

Auction sites are another service that is becoming massive. Sites such as eBay.com and Gumtree.com are increasingly becoming some family’s main way of shopping as they offer many products, may they be used or new, at discounted prices, many people see such sites as “an online boot fair” as, along many other products, some people try and sell anything. Many sellers sell things at discounted prices to get people to look at their product and think “this is really cheap” and when they look at it closely they see that the seller is charging more money in postage and packaging, or P+P, so that they are actually making a profit so in turn, buyer isn’t actually saving anything.

Every time a user buys or sells something, the other person in the process, either the buyer or seller, leave feedback, which, if good, makes your account more established so people would be more incline to buy from you, making you a ‘Power Seller’ but if they leave bad feedback them your rating goes down making people not want to buy from you. This can be an advantage to buyers and seller, but it can also be a BIG disadvantage.

Many people use this service to make a little bit extra cash; maybe to buy new things or to pay the bills, here is a video to prove this:

There are obvious advantages to sites like this, making money from old junk that you may not want anymore but somebody else does, and generally clearing the house from junk, but there are disadvantages as well, people may offer fake products to buy at the price of the actual product so people will think that the product is genuine.

Overall, e-Commerce has become one of the most useful services available today online and gives people the ability to do everyday things much easier and quicker.