What is online shopping?
businessdictionary.com defines online shopping as the act of purchasing products or services over the Internet. Online shopping has grown in popularity over the years, mainly because people find it convenient and easy to shop from the comfort of their home or office. One of the most enticing factor about online shopping, particularly during holiday seasons, is it alleviates the need to wait in long lines or search from store to store for a particular item. When the world wide web opened for commercial use in 1991, Pizza Hut was one of the first companies to open an online pizza shop by 1994. This was followed by the giant Amazon and EBay in 1995. Since then, online shopping has revolutionised the way business is done by having products available online and purchasing them with just a few clicks of a mouse.
Credit Cards and PayPal are the most common means to pay for online purchases although there are other payment options depending on the online shop. Some accept payments by bank deposits or COD (Cash On Delivery).
Some online shops employ apps called Shopping Carts wherein you just click on "Add To Basket". At this point, stop for a while and check if the online shop starts with https:// and not http://. A site that uses https means they have employed some security with regard to handling your money. After you enter your credit card or paypal details, some sites also employ another layer of security, called Captcha, which makes sure that an actual person is doing the purchasing and not some computer program being used for fraudulent purchases. Once you go through the process, all you need to do is wait for delivery. It is that simple!
