Malaysians love to shop online, and when it comes to shopping online, there are various ways you can use to save you money. Every cent counts in this economy we are in currently. Also, time is money so you want to save money quickly too with the help of technology especially the Internet.
But of course, not everything about online shopping is good. There are issues like delay in delivery time, damaged goods upon arrival or worse still, the wrong items were sent to you! In this post, we look at the pros and cons of online shopping objectively.
The advantages of shopping online include:
- The stores are almost open 24 hours, 365 days a year.
- It is easy to compare prices of similar products.
- Shoppers can shop from the comfort of their homes, even in their pajamas!
- Save on petrol, toll and parking.
- Don’t have to deal with aggressive sales people, great for introverts!
- No crowd! You don’t even have to queue to pay at the cashier.
- You can read hundreds and thousands genuine reviews online by other buyers before making an informed decision.
- Online coupons such as Lazada voucher and Zalora promo code are aplenty, easy to use too!
- There are sites like ShopCoupons to help you get the latest coupon codes in a click of a button.
The disadvantages of shopping online are:
- You don’t get to physically touch or inspect the item before purchasing it.
- You don’t get to negotiate or haggle for a lower price with a real sales person.
- Items ordered online may ship from overseas and may not be always in stock.
- There’s a chance to be scammed by bogus online shopping sites that have ceased operations but still accessible online.
- When there’s a problem, you don’t have a person to personal assist you.
- Items bought and shipped online may look vastly different from advertised on the websites.
- Online coupons may come with confusing terms and conditions and most of them are only applicable for first time customers.
Other Pros and Cons of Online Shopping
Pros: Many online stores sell products at really low prices because of the lack of overhead such as operating costs including rent, staffing, water, electricity and storage. A lot of these are at least partially taken into consideration for the final price of the products.
Cons: Online stores advertising free or cheap products will sometimes intentionally increase the cost of shipping so that they profit from the purchase. It’s not uncommon for shipping fee to cost more than the product itself!
The Bottom Line
Shoppers will save money and frustration by taking the time to learn the pros and cons of purchasing from both online and local stores. How repairs are handled on the products purchased is another important point to consider.
Most of the times, it’s easier to return a faulty product to the store for repair, rather than going through the trouble and expense of filling various forms and shipping it back through an online store. Happy shopping and it always pays to be an informed consumer!
