Online shopping is the process consumers go through to purchase products or services over the Internet. An online shop, eshop, e-store, internet shop, webshop, webstore, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or in a shopping mall.

The metaphor of an online catalog is also used, by analogy with mail order catalogs. All types of stores have retail web sites, including those that do and do not also have physical storefronts and paper catalogs. Online shopping is a type of electronic commerce used for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions.

Webshop

The term "Webshop" also refers to a place of business where web development, web hosting and other types of web related activities take place (Web refers to the World Wide Web and "shop" has a colloquial meaning used to describe the place). Buying online introduced new ways of reducing costs by reducing the number of staff needed. It is a more effective way of getting products to people and spreading into different demographics.

Benefits of online shopping

1. Bargaining power of consumers. They enjoy a wider choice
2. Supplier power. It is more difficult for consumers to manage a non-digital channel.
3. Internet increases commoditisation
4. Threat of new entrants. Online means it is easier to introduce new services with lower over-heads
5. Threat of substitutes
6. Rivalry among competitors. It is easier to introduce products and services to different markets

History

The idea of online shopping predates the World Wide Web, for there are earlier experiments involving real-time transaction processing from a domestic television. The technology, based on Videotext, was first demonstrated in 1979 by Michael Aldrich, who designed and installed systems in the UK, including the first Tesco pilot system in 1984. The first B2B was Thomson Holidays in 1981.

In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee created the first World Wide Web server and browser.Palmer, Kimberly.(2007) News & World Report. In 1992 Charles Stack created the first online book store, Book Stacks Unlimited (aka Books.com), two years before Jeff Bezos started Amazon. In 1994 other advances took place, such as online banking and the opening of an online pizza shop by Pizza Hut. During that same year, Netscape introduced SSL encryption of data transferred online, which has become essential for secure online shopping. In 1995 Amazon expanded its online shopping, and in 1996 eBay appeared..

Customers

In general, shopping has always catered to middle class and upper class women. Shopping is fragmented and pyramid-shaped. At the pinnacle are elegant boutiques for the affluent, a huge belt of inelegant but ruthlessly efficient “discounters” flog plenty at the pyramid's precarious middle. According to the anaylsis of Susan D. Davis, at its base are the world's workers and poor, on whose cheapened labor the rest of the pyramid depends for its incredible abundance.Davis, Susan G.(2001) Culture Works the Political Economy of Culture. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press. Shopping has evolved from single stores to large malls containing many stores that most often offer attentive service, store credit, delivery, and acceptance of returns. These new additions to shopping have encouraged and targeted middle class women.