Online Consumerism - A Slow Poison
Online consumerism is quietly seeping into our cyber generation to the core. Being a digital native, I agree that online shopping has made shopping easy and comfortable without having to be mobile. However, it has also paved way for unlimited shopping to the point of giving rise to the number of shopaholics. Online shopping proves very useful to people who cannot venture out for any reason. But I believe since now Internet is easily accessible anywhere and to everybody it has become a favorite pastime for people of all age groups to first engage in online virtual shopping and later on do actual online shopping.
Online shopping is the in thing today. If you are not aware of what online shopping is and which websites cater to online shopping, you are considered back dated. I am an avid online shopper too, but only when it is absolutely necessary. For example, if I am looking for a particular book in a book store and am unable to find it there, I go to any online book selling site where searching a book is much easier. I can easily place the order if the book is available and if the book is not available, I can park it for later using the notify me alert. In this case online shopping can come handy.
Not that I am completely against any kind of online shopping. In fact, I do like sites which offer baby items, because it is very difficult to go shopping with newborn babies. So bringing the shop at your door step in terms of free/paid home delivery is a nice thing. But somewhere deep down I feel that online shopping is taking away the family shopping time. It is taking away the joy of spending time with one’s family, spending time in browsing through many items, be it garments or household articles and buying it together. After dinner time where the entire family comes together, I guess it is shopping which is another way families spend time together.
Nevertheless, there exist another set of people or buyers who visit various shops in a mall to try out various outfits, shoes etc and later order them online. I believe the discount that these online shopping sites offer are to be blamed and the kind of promotion they do goes a long way to retain online customers. The return policy even after trying things out, the cash on delivery option, and better still EMI option which is offered is a great hit among online customers.
So much for online shopping- like I have mentioned before I am not completely against it neither I encourage people to do online shopping but it is my take on what online shopping is doing to us – making us stick to the laptop/computer or other internet enabled hand held devices, making us shopaholics, and making us glued to FB to get likes on our new possessions, outfits and making us totally opt for a sedentary lifestyle without even realizing it.
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