Convenience is one of the first things to appear obvious whenshopping online. Retail sales from online merchants have skyrocketed within the last five years. Just recently in the beginning of 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau reported over $4 trillion in retail and wholesale transactions online through the internet. This in turn amounted to a staggering 16.1% of all U.S Shipments and sales. With the introduction of online shopping, many other businesses have sprung up in order to support the world’s mighty need to purchase goods through the internet. These are some of the creations that have popped up since the online merchant boom.
Shopping online has never been so easy
A large number of businesses affiliated with online merchants have been created in order to make purchasing goods online easier and even more convenient. One example of a new form of online payment options is online wallets. The concept is quite simple. These are money deposit accounts that hold deposited money (usually from a debit card while some online wallets provide an online credit “shopping” card) specifically for the function of paying for goods online. Skrill is one example of a digital wallet that is used throughout the world. According to The Sunday Times, in 2010 Skrill was the number one fastest growing, equity-backed company in the UK based on profits alone.The Introduction of Comparison Engines
Sometimes a potential online customer will find themselves at a website providing a good they want but are unable to make up their mind. This is because they are unaware if a better price for the same product exists somewhere else on the web. This is one of the reasons that Comparison Shopping Engines(CSE) was invented. Simply put, these search engines compare the prices of products from a multitude of online stores, depending upon affiliation, and present the information to a customer. Most of the time, these shopping engines do not provide any actual goods themselves. They are highly sought after by online merchants in order to increase the amount of traffic through a sales website.
Evolution of a Retailer
Some retail businesses become so successful in selling the goods of other companies that they are able to create their own products as well. Amazon.com is a prime example of a company that has a very powerful brand name. The Amazon Kindle was introduced as a portable tablet reader that was exclusive to Amazon in the sense that all reading material for the item could only be purchased through Amazon’s online retailer. Not only does the website generate income by providing customers with a wide selection of retail goods from other companies, it also provides eBooks that can only be bought from one place. The same website also distributes their tablet through other vendors.
Overall, online merchants have every reason to be happy. With the large amount of companies being created just to make online shopping more convenient for consumers, it does not seem like online vendors will be closing their doors anytime soon. Simply put, the future of online retail stores looks promising and lucrative for the years to come.
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