Trends

                Online shopping is more popular now than it has ever been. People love being able to just go online, click and buy. It just makes shopping so much easier. This trend has been rising since its beginning in the 1990’s. Every day, more and more people are choosing to do their shopping over the internet instead of actually going to a store.

            Almost every store nowadays has a website online from which you can shop. Even grocery stores have this option. Statistics show that online sales have grown "from 72 billion U.S. dollars in 2002 to 256 billion U.S. dollars in 2011" ("statista").

This shows that in the United States, Americans spent 184 billion more dollars in the course of 9 years and these numbers are only going to rise in the future. It is “predicted that online retail revenues alone would reach 269 billion U.S. dollars by 2015” ("statista").

            During the holidays is when online shopping is at its best. A lot of people like to avoid the large crowds of gift buyers. Online shopping is a simple way to get your Christmas shopping, or birthday shopping, done and over with without having to go out. Stores also encourage this by having many online deals that makes online shopping even better.

            There are both good and bad parts about the rise of the online shopping trend.

The good being that it is more convenient for shoppers. It is much more convenient for a shopper to just log on to his or her computer and shop that way. Also, it is very easy to compare prices from different stores online to get a better deal. A bad side to this is the shipping costs you have to pay for the items to be taken to your house. Depending on what website you are shopping from, the shipping can be very expensive and sometimes make what you are purchasing not worth it. Another thing to be wary about with online shopping is the item you ordering being broken or not exactly what you thought it would be. People also leave their houses less often due to their being online shopping. Since they can just get whatever they want delivered to their house, there isn't as many reasons to leave. As this trend rises, the more these pros and cons will be looked at and noticed by those participating in it.

            The trend online shopping is a big one. One which many people do every day. It is a trend that will be around for a long time and will just keep getting more popular.

While there are some negatives in this trend, most people will just focus on the postitives.