Pros and Cons in Purchasing Online
Online shopping spread worldwide, and here in the Philippines we have the Shopee and Lazada as the most popular shopping app/site. But then, since it's online there are advantages and disadvantages in purchasing items. I remember the very first time I plan to order in Shopee because in my local place this is more popular, then I asked my friends how to do it and they explain to me how, while one of my bestfriend sent me a video tutorial. Haha
As a shopper who cares about the quality of the product, it is good that we must double-check those shop and products that we want to purchase. Tiktok and Facebook, are common platform where you can mostly see suggested products that can easily attract netizens to buy. There are cases that we are persuade how it looks, or for example in beauty products on how it gives a good results to users; without knowing that those are sponsors. We watch/read, go to shopping application, add to cart, check-out, but got disappointed once we recieve the product.
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Buying online for almost 9 months, I have learned some pros and cons of choosing online than physical store;
Pros
You can read feedbacks
Good thing about purchasing online is that you read buyer's comments. You can check if they are satisfied or dissatisfied about the products, even the seller's accommodation, and on how they securely packed items before shipment. Through this, you can see if the products are in good quality and shop's service.
Less effort
In purchasing online, all you need to have is a good internet connection and after that you can freely select shop and items, even you're at home. I love to go shopping with my mom, but in most cases she always get tired easily, now that we are using shopping app, we just sit on living room and choose what we want.
Lots of choices
Just like Shopee app, there's a lot of shop and products that we can choose. For example you want to buy a dress, then you go in a mall and inside that mall there are only 3-5 mini store which you can choose, and at the end you haven't seen anything that you like. But in online, there are hundreds of stores which you can select. Personally, I prefer to buy dresses online because most of their styles are not in the mall or too expensive.
Sales and vouchers
I know in mall there are also sales. But what I like more in shopping app is aside from many/occasional sales, they also provide vouchers which can help us to get less in purchasing products. I have a lot of vouchers, just no money intended to check-out items haha
Cons
Shipout/Delivery takes too long
Most of the excellent shops are located in Luzon, while me, I am living in Mindanao and the earliest package that we recieved from there takes 1 week. I also tried to buy art materials online and I'm very disappointed because it takes two months before I received the items, bad thing is I cannot cancel and there's no response in my chat.
Missing and/or wrong item
This is what I hate the most in recieving products, because imagine that you pay right amount and recieved incomplete items. I also read some comments saying "I picked red color but the seller give me green color", it's really disappointing, once there's comment something like this, I immediately leave the shop.
Bigger shipping fee
There are shops which we can't apply shipping voucher, and in most cases shipping voucher can only be applied when you reach a specific amount; 249 php as an example. Since that we are located in Mindanao, we reached 3-4$ shipping fee in other shops. So better that if you buy online, buy it all in one store for less shipping fee.
That's it readers, just few points based on my own experience. My point here is for us to check and think twice before ordering online, because no matter how small or big the money that you used, it was still a money and worth to use for a good purpose.
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Flexing my sponsors, people who guide and support me throughout my journey here. You guys can check them too:)
Images were edited using Canva/PicsArt
April 28, 2022
-Ling
There is an easy way to shop online but there are advantages and disadvantages to everything. But the advantage of online shopping is that we can easily buy anything from any corner of the world.