Online Shopping

When I think of how the internet and digital media generally has changed us both individually and collectively, I automatically think of online shopping. In the last few years, online shopping has sky rocketed. With services such as Amazon, it makes the online shopping experience so much easier than going to the store yourself. The data I have below shows how online retail sales in America in billions of dollars has changed from 2013 and what is predicted in 2020. As can be seen, the online shopping industry is still growing rapidly.

What has caused this shift in shopping? A recent survey from the Wall Street Journal has reported than for the first time, online shoppers are now doing over half of their shopping online. They also investigated how they make their purchases and broke it down by generation. It should be of no surprise than 63% of the people buying things online from their phone are Millennials. As technology is becoming more engraved into our lives, especially younger people and children, the ease of using your phone to buy things grows. We, as young people, like to online shop more than seniors or baby boomers. The data below is what the Wall Street Journal reported.

So why are people online shopping? Part of understanding how internet and mass media is changing us is finding out why we like it so much. There have been a variety of studies that have been done as to why people like to online shop. The biggest reasons are that it saves time, easier to compare prices, and there is more variety. The figure below shows a lengthier list of why people prefer to online shop.

Okay, so online shopping is growing and people are loving it. How is this changing us? How is the internet and mass media changing us from the example of online shopping? I think one very major way is that online shopping has made us much pickier and impatient. When you go into a store, you only have so many options. When you are shopping online, you not only have a much wider variety, but you can shop at many different stores at the same time. You can find exactly what you are looking for, which never happens in the physical store. Since I have started shopping online more, I noticed this about myself. I love being able to find the exact thing I want online. When I go to physical stores now, I just get frustrated and angry. They never have what I want or its not in the right size and it takes so long to go through everything. I am much more impatient and pickier. I know it seems crazy that something as silly as online shopping can do that, but it’s true. Being able to have the power of the internet and mass media is the same thing as having your own personal mall. You can shop anywhere! You can Google black Nike tennis shoes and you will get a bunch of results from tons of different store. Why would you even have to leave the house right? You can get all the details about it online and have it sent for free!

I also feel like online shopping has made us more cautious. When you are looking at products online, there are usually reviews on the webpage so you can see what other people liked about the product or didn’t like. This doesn’t happen in actual stores!! This is huge! When you see something you like in the store, you usually just get it. But if you see that same thing online and it has a bad rating, you are definitely going to read the reviews and investigate. You don’t want to buy something that other people hate and can tell you exactly why you shouldn’t buy it. It brings the social aspect of shopping in the store with people. Except it is so much more, you can see reviews on everything. This is much more helpful than just going to the store with your friend and having only one opinion about something. I know that this is especially true for me. I love knowing what other people think about products, it helps anticipate if anything can go wrong. What if everyone says that the coffee maker will stop working after a month? You wouldn’t know that from going to the store where you can only see the physical product. You would have to look at review and see what other people are saying. This makes the shopper more informed about what they want to buy, and all the more cautious.

Online shopping is definitely an example of how the internet and mass media as changed us both individually and collectively. We, or most people, are much more picky, impatient, and cautious about they why we shop. Is this a good or bad thing? I think this is hard to say. In some ways it is good. We are more informed and have many more options to things that we wouldn’t in an actual store. But it has made us very picky and impatient too, which can be bad. It isn’t always a bad thing, but the fact I can’t go to a store without getting frustrated is a bad thing! It all just depends on the person, whether it has done more good or bad.