Not long ago, many of us shopped in the local stores in our communities, weathering storms, inadequate parking, long lines, and wobbly shopping carts.
In the U.S., Forrester Research showed $248.7 billion online sales in 2014 with a compounded growth of 10% forecasted for the next five years. In Western Europe sales are expected to reach 14 billion euros ($155.7 billion), with a growth of 11% percent annually. Apparel, computers and consumer electronics will continue to be dominant purchases; these three areas make up 40% of the current online sales which won't change in the near future.
Important Stats
On average, retailers that have both a physical (store) and online presence have reported an average of 23% growth. Online shoppers are beginning to think that the best deals are available online (71%) and that they get better prices there (66%). These statistics show that the Internet is only going to become more popular as time goes by and purchasers worldwide will become more comfortable about the security and on-time delivery of their purchases. Studies show that from 2013 to 2014 that online shipping has grown exponentially. Unfortunately, with the increase of online shopping, also came the fear of consumers -- even though the desirability of shopping online included the convenience of shopping at home, faster delivery, easier return policies, and many sites offering free shipping.
Online Swindlers
With all of the added benefits, why are consumers haunted with fear? Well as the online shopping increased, so did online swindlers -- fraudsters taking advantage of the Internet's anonymous nature, also figured out that they could get away with (1) sending goods late or not at all; (2) buyers purchasing items and then claiming to have not received them, thereby causing a chargeback to the seller; and (3) sellers selling items of less value or significantly different than advertised are all the fears that haunt online shoppers. If you are consumer that would like to have the convenience of shopping online but are haunted with fear, you can protect yourself by doing 4 things:
How to Protect Yourself
- Open a PayPal account. You only need two things to start to do so -- using PayPal, an email address and credit card.
- After you Sign-Up PayPal will send you an email where you will need to confirm your email address.
- Add your credit card. After a stringent verification process, PayPal will store and safeguard your card details for all your future purchases online.
- Now you're done! You now ready to go shopping anywhere PayPal is accepted which is mostly everywhere.
The added benefit of using PayPal that is, now that you are confirmed with PayPal, there will be no need to give out your card number on sites that you shop because your financial information is never given away to sellers, and if something goes wrong with your order, all of your eligible transactions will be fully reimbursed. When you use PayPal, you are protected from checkout to delivery. Both the buyer and the seller are verified through PayPal's stringent verification process, so now both of you can be relieved from your fear of a fraudulent purchase.
So what are you waiting for? Open your PayPal account today and get started with your online shopping!