Are you shopping online for almost everything?
It probably depends somewhat on your age. Most of us are not yet shopping online for furniture, home repair & home decorations, and jewelry but we are for books, music, movies, and electronics. Many of us are increasingly shopping online for clothes. The younger you are, the more likely you are to be buying your groceries (and everything else) online. If you have a family, you’re probably not only shopping online, you’re setting up automatic re-ordering so that you don’t have to get out there and drag the kids along.
Shopping online is very popular amongst millennials.
Younger shoppers spend more time shopping on their mobile devices and even shopping from social media. This is particularly prevalent in Asian countries. Over half of young people shopping in Thailand, for example, use their mobile devices and shop through social media, mainly through Facebook.
If you’re shopping online, particularly through your mobile device, make sure that you stay on top of your security. You can read my blog post here: How to Manage Your Passwords.
We all know that shopping online has hurt brick-and-mortar businesses.
With books, music, and videos especially, we have no other recourse in some localities now, apart from the local Redbox kiosk or the local library. (Hopefully you still have an independent book store where you live – I have to drive two towns away.) Many large clothing chains are now struggling to stay in business – The Gap, Sears, Macy’s, J. C. Penney, etc.
Shopping in a physical store has its advantages – you’ll have the item immediately without having to wait for delivery and you don’t have to pay for a delivery charge. Those are the reasons why most of still do our grocery shopping in a physical store. We need our fresh good for tonight’s dinner and many of us don’t plan meals too far in advance.
Personally, I like to do my clothes shopping in person so that I can try on the clothes and see how they look. And it’s easier to return items.
If you can afford it, there are still local options, mainly in the form of pricey boutiques. If you can’t afford it, there are still stores like Walmart and Target, but you’ll have to battle full parking lots and long check-out lines. Given that alternative, I usually turn to Google Express.
Do you want to know more about online shopping and your security and privacy?
