Online Shopping Vs Traditional One

According to France philosopher, Jean Baudrillard who believes that “the characteristic of our society is the condition that people consume as if it is the center of their life”. Another characteristic of a consumer society is that people often spend their money and sometimes their time by purchasing goods that not actually cover their needs. Considering the purpose of my research, first, I tried to gather as many as I could culturally data, and secondly, that I should start looking for informants regardless of their age, gender, social class, etc.

The first issue that I had to deal with was to find ‘the right’ informants for my fieldwork and I thought that it was also extremely important for my research. Furthermore, I noticed that young adult women between 20 and 30 years old were that group of people who were interested more in shopping either in a physical store or online. So, I tried to focus more on this group of people in my research as their different backgrounds and the reasons for choosing Zara as a brand for their shopping would result in different kinds of experiences for my fieldwork.

In addition, when I started thinking about my fieldwork, I realized that the language would be also an issue for me. As an International student, and not being familiar with the Danish language I thought it would be difficult to approach people especially those who are not speaking English. That’s why I decided that it was ideal to start finding some of my informants from the university where I study. Here, I had already gained a network that would be helpful, and I hoped that they are buying online.

The second group of informants that I used because I luckily had access to it, was the employees of Zara in Odense. Most of the employees were Danish that’s why I asked them politely if they had any friend who was interested to have a friendly conversation with him about his shopping habits and why of course he chose to shop online. The truth is that I was not as lucky as I expected from this group of informants because some of their friends did not have the time to have a meeting with me and some others, were not in Odense during the period that I need them.

Overall, as I mentioned, in the beginning, I approached the managers and the employees of the store and I used them as my key informants because I thought that was the most appropriate people to explain a lot of things and characteristics of the customers. The managers are the people who are close to the customers because they are there every day and they hear the complaints, the comment that they have in order to get better. So, having this everyday contact with them was the best way to find out and after that to be informed which will be the best questions in order to get the data that I need for my research.

Before starting to conduct my fieldwork, I had decided that I should distinguish my position and keep a very natural position. As a person who is interested a lot in shopping either online or in a physical store and as an employee also in this company, I thought that it was better for my research to forget what I already knew and start everything from the beginning.

It is evident that factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, and other things were important for my research so, I should take them into consideration. As an international student, I am part of an international environment where people from all over the world came to study. So, I had to respect all the differences that may have from my own way of thinking and living.

Conclusions

First, online shopping has a lot of advantages. It is very convenient; you can visit numerous stores without leaving your home. In addition, online shopping stores provide convenience for customers by shopping anytime, anywhere, and provide many shopping websites that facilitate the purchase process between different websites also, these sites are open all day. And If you are like me, you would like to avoid crowds in local shops. Through the sites, I can compare the prices of other shopping sites and take the appropriate prices and the prices of shopping sites are always lower than the prices of local markets because we buy them from the main factory. In addition, information about the product is displayed, such as the colors available on the site, the different sizes, the quantity required, methods of use, and warnings about this product.  Also, a nice feature of shopping websites is that they display customer opinions under the product.  Service is also available to communicate with the seller directly through messages and to contact customer service. also, there are bonuses and offers on products, sometimes free shipping, and many forms of payment, such as cash on delivery and visa.

On the other hand, the online environment creates not only advantages, there are also disadvantages. There are a lot of flaws in online shopping such as late delivery of orders and the inability to see products alive and checking the quality, size and color of the product as well as delivery of poor quality products and sometimes we find that the products are damaged upon receipt due to the transfer of products from one station to another station and also an error in  The delivery address and receiving error requests, in addition to that some sellers raise prices and customs upon request, and some fear online shopping because of the large number of frauds and breaches of private information such as bank card number, name and address.

Finally, everything in our lives has many positives, and on the other hand, it has negatives such as online shopping. And Everyone is now searching for their latest and fastest way. Personally, I think online shopping offers convenient advantages, and on the other hand, we should be very careful while choosing and trading online. And for the pest, you should completion of all bank transfers via your computer. 

References

En.m.wikipedia.org. 2020. Online Shopping. [online] Available at: [Accessed 9 May 2020].

Market Business News. 2020. Online Shopping - Definition and Meaning - Market Business News. [online] Available at: [Accessed 11 May 2020].

Newworldencyclopedia.org. 2020. Online Shopping - New World Encyclopedia. [online] Available at: [Accessed 11 May 2020].

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