Criteria C

As broadband internet and improved services in online retail websites, online shopping is becoming a more convenient way for anyone that basically has internet and a credit card. People buy from the internet because there are competitive deals on lots of retail websites that are a few clicks away from each other rather than the traditional way, which is searching around local stores and wasting a lot of time (Thompson, 2008). Another advantage is from the recent increase in the price of gas for cars which made transportation a difficult choice and because of that, there has been a 7.4% decrease in sales at stores, which concludes that more people are already encouraged to buy from the net and as reports say that people are uncomfortable to drive to stores for hours because of gas (Rosenbloom, 2008). But what is stopping more people from shopping using the internet is the question of how secure websites are from hacking and phishing which could lead up to identity theft and unreliability of these websites. Due to that, 60% of customers only research online for information they need about items like price and performance but they would prefer going to an actual shop and physically buy an item. That is also a matter of reliability as these items could be faulty or malfunctioning when shipped and these items bought from the internet would need a lot to be taken through a lot of trouble before they can be returned and fixed, therefore people would rather buy from stores just for that case. (kay, 2008)