Effects of online shopping

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The trend of online shopping is increasing significantly. What effect does it have on the environment and society in general?

With the strongly widespread use of computer, smartphone and other hand-held devices, people could easily shop whenever and wherever they want just by one click of mouse. This type of shopping, practically, gain popularity due to its convenience and eco-friendliness. Individually, I opine that online shopping also has an optimistically impact on consumer demand of society as it reduces negative factors affecting the environment.

Conventionally, customers have to bring a lot of cash to afford valuable items. Hence, many countries across the world, in recent decades, have made an effort to replaced cash by using debit or credit cards for purchasing. There’s the fact that to produce paper money, many green trees were felled, which seriously affected natural ecosystems. Therefore, shopping online plays an important role in restricting the use of banknotes in process of exchanging goods as well as deforestation for money production. Furthermore, online shops merely transport goods directly from their warehouses to customer’s private homes without required lots of electricity and raw materials that lead to emission of greenhouse gases like current local shops.

Besides positive effects on environment, shopping via the internet also renders a huge revenue for small sellers and corporations. They do not have to pay for renting space or business houses as well as significantly cut wages paid to employees. This also reduces household expense, since taxes applied on items sold on the Internet are cheaper than on markets. Take Amazon for example, it is only priced as half as it should be in physical shops. Not only saving shopping costs, searching for goods via social media ensures customers' safety, which both gives them peace of mind and minimizes robbery for society when direct shopping.

In summary, although online shopping still has certain limitations, it’s not significant compared to the huge benefits that it renders.