Before the Internet days if you wanted to buy lets say a camera you had a few options for where to go. The local mall of the photo shop had a selection of cameras are various prices. Having a captive market the prices were relatively high especially for more rare products for which the supply was extremely low. Really rare products were simply not available or required a long trip to a specialty store. The only alternative to brick and mortar shopping was buying products over the phone. But phone shopping has many disadvantages as it is slow and it allows a very restricted understanding of the products you are buying. Even with catalogs the images and information is limited.

The Internet combined with efficient and low cost shipping services like UPS and FedEx changed the way people are shopping. A web site has no physical presence it is a virtual store or a virtual mall that uses an electronic product catalog allowing anyone in the world with Internet access to browse the catalog look at product images videos and even three dimensional interactive photos. Everybody with an Internet access can get a price quote including shipping and shipment time and decide if the product and price are a good deal. Anyone with an Internet access can login to an unlimited number of such web sites and compare very fast and efficiently for prices and other terms. Buying is a very easy experience without the need to leave the comfort of your home and with just a few clicks you can browse products compare and purchase products. The purchased products are sent shipped right to your doorstep.

Comparing online products is now even easier. Instead of having to browse many online stores one by one some internet web sites provide shopping comparison services for the consumers. These web sites either automatically or manually or using both methods crawl the Internet indexing products with their prices and some other terms and information. In turn these web sites allow consumers to login enter a product they are looking for and in less than a second get a long list of which online Internet stores sell that product and for how much. These sites also let consumers write reviews about each store and rate the store thus letting consumers make smart buying decisions based on a combination of price and rating rather than simply picking up the lowest price store.

Another factor in the ease and safety of online shopping is the standardized and safe paying mechanisms that were developed. Consumers can pay for their products using services like PayPal or directly by entering their credit card information. By using credit cards users can get an extra layer of peace of mind as the credit card company acts as a mediator when it comes to fraud or other problems with the product. For example if you purchased a product and it was never received or maybe received broken or just faulty and the store refuses to refund your payment you can contact the credit card to dispute the charge and in most cases they would refund the charge for you. The feeling of safety when shopping online encourages more consumers to shop.