These days, shopping is no longer regarded as a task, in which you have to pump put a lot of energy, time and maybe even cash. It has become as simple, as visiting an online store from your desktop computer or hand-held mobile device. You scan the products, compare their features and prices with other brands, add to your online shopping cart and then place your order. It is that simple.
This can be useful for an already existing business venture and also a start-up company. It requires very less investment, though the benefits are plenty. There is no need to spend for constructing a concrete store or renting one. Besides, a concrete store only has limited storage space, while there is no limit to an e-commerce store. There are no intermediary agents like staff members and salesmen, hence doing away with additional expenses in the form of reimbursements and salaries comes in handy.
The process of setting up an e-commerce store is simpler than normally judged. The initial step is to hire a website and web application development company. If your organization already has a website, you could simply add shopping cart software to your site. This then turns your existing website into an online store as well. Next, comes promoting and advertising your site through search engine optimization, Google analytics and social media campaigning.
Social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more, are more like a big board, which is viewed and grabs the attention of billions across the world. Creating advertisements, pages and creating pages on these mediums is bound to get your brand noticed massively, and that too in the least time. Moreover, it requires a very minute investment when compared to traditional advertising on another medium.
But hey! Even those are old. Now it is all about mobile applications! Food-delivery apps such as Swiggy, Zomato and others are well known even to primary school aged-kids! In addition, the 'word of mouth' or 'recommendations from existing customers spread like wildfire on social media sites. E-commerce through social media is the “hanging out with friends at the mall” of today’s digital generation. The only difference is that everyone is at the mall!
But the point is where all this is going? This post tries to explore the nuances of modern shopping from the perspectives of businessmen as well as customers. Like every coin has two sides; this advancement in technology also has its positive as well as negative impact on humanity. Technology sure has connected us to businesses as well as individuals across different regions and time zones. But do we even know the businesses or people who live right beside us? Think of it; next shopping on e-commerce platforms enable us to choose what we desire from a list of multiple products and/or services. But often we end us purchasing products on these platforms that are sold in shops just around the corner.
So, is that a blessing or a curse? On one end, you have the advantage of choosing what you want from multiple shops without even leaving your place. But on the other hand, aren’t you actually missing the true experience of shopping? It is true that events such as the coronavirus pandemic has forced us to stay away from visiting public places and purchasing almost everything we need, right from the comfort of our mobile phones. Even the concepts of net banking and payment wallets highly reduced our needs of directly visiting banks. But is that what we need?
More clarity can be gained while taking the example of the coronavirus. Dine-in-at hotels or visiting shopping malls may be banned. Yet, when films of superstars such as Vijay, Sivakarthikeyan and Allu Arjun release down south, theaters see full occupancy! People don’t find problems in that; neither the theater owners nor the audience! What happens next? You see the second wave, then the third, and God knows how many more!
The bottom line of such varied comparisons is that in the past, present and even the future; we always will have a choice. Trends may change, lifestyles may change; but people will remain people. Hence, you have to choose wisely. Do you want technology to make your lives easier so that you can do multiple tasks at once, or do you want you want it fast-forward your life and you ended your game before you can relish it?
The author of this post is not attempting to malign or find faults in new lifestyles nor the over dependence on technology. Every style, culture or even advancement in technology has its own plus and minuses. But the choice is in your hands.
Stating Agent Smith in the movie Matrix, “Change is inevitable…”
But remember, what you change and how you change is up to you…
About the Author
Yasir Sulaiman is an acclaimed author of 6 books (fiction). A summary of his other responsibilities includes being a poet, a YouTube presenter, a Technical Writer, a social media promoter, client coordinator, and a freelance communicative English tutor.