INTRODUCTION
Online shopping is the process whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller in real-time, without an intermediary service, over the Internet. If an intermediary service is present the process is called electronic commerce. An online shop, eshop, e-store, internet shop, webshop, webstore, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortarretailer or in a shopping mall. The process is called Business-to-Consumer (B2C) online shopping. When a business buys from another business it is called Business-to-Business (B2B) online shopping. Both B2C and B2B online shopping are forms of e-commerce.
In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee created the first World Wide Web server and browser. [1] [1] [1]
In recent years, online shopping has become popular; however, it still caters to the middle and upper class. In order to shop online, one must be able to have access to a computer, a bank account and a debit card. Shopping has evolved with the growth of technology. According to research found in the Journal of Electronic Commerce, if wefocus on the demographic characteristics of the in-home shopper, in general, the higher the level of education, income, and occupation of the head of the household, the more favourable the perception of non-store shopping. [2] [2]
Online shopping widened the target audience to men and women of the middle class. At first, the main users of online shopping were young men with a high level of income and a university education. [2] [2]
Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly, or do a search across many different vendors using a shopping search engine.
Once a particular product has been found on the web site of the seller, most online retailers use shopping cart software to allow the consumer to accumulate multiple items and to adjust quantities, by analogy with filling a physical shopping cart or basket in a conventional store. A “checkout” process follows (continuing the physical-store analogy) in which payment and delivery information is collected, if necessary. Some stores allow consumers to sign up for a permanent online account so that some or all of this information only needs to be entered once. The consumer often receives an e-mail confirmation once the transaction is complete. Less sophisticated stores may rely on consumers to phone or e-mail their orders (though credit card numbers are not accepted by e-mail, for security reasons).
BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Online shopping is something that most of us take for granted these days. We enjoy the convenience and other benefits of shopping online. However it wasn’t that long ago that we couldn’t shop online from home at all. Online shopping didn’t even develop until the mid-1990’s. When we remember that, we realize that we’re still in the early stages of online shopping. We’re still learning what works, what doesn’t and how we can improve this great shopping option so that it’s even better in the future than it is today. Let’s take a look at the history of online shopping so we can see how far we’ve come to date.
Before Online Shopping: What It Required to Start Shopping Online
There is some history of online shopping that dates back to the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. However most of this was theoretical. The Internet was neither widespread in use nor fast enough to accommodate e-commerce at this time. As a result, although there were steps made to make online shopping happen back then, not much really took place that relates to the online shopping tools we use today.
There were a few different things that had to happen before online shopping could become an option for us. Once those things had occurred, we were able to enter the early stages of shopping online. The things that had to happen included:
The First Online Bookstore
You probably know that Amazon was one of the first online retailers so you might think that it was certainly the first online bookstore. However that isn’t actually the case. In 1992, several years before Amazon was launched, the first-ever online bookstore was opened by a man named Charles Stack. Originally called Book Stacks Unlimited it eventually become Books.com.
Pizza Hut, eBay and Amazon Break Ground
The first businesses to really make shopping online popular may (or may not) be the ones that you would think of first today. The two leading businesses that really got things going in the world of online shopping were Amazon and eBay. However neither of these was the first widely-recognized name to offer online shopping. That honor actually goes to Pizza Hut which developed an online ordering and payment system as early as 1994 for testing in some areas. Interestingly, although they started online shopping options back then, it wasn’t until 2007 that this option became available for every single one of their locations. Growth of the Internet, increased Internet speeds and other technological advances were what eventually made this happen.
Amazon was the first big online retailer to develop, launching back in 1995. It wasn’t long at all before eBay followed suit. These two businesses remain among the top online shopping sites today. The differences between them foreshadowed the different routes that online shopping would take over time. On the one hand you have a huge store that offers a lot of different merchandise of its own. And on the other, you have an auction site where the average person can advertise their products for sale in auction format. Both styles of online shopping are different from one another and both are quite popular.
Security Threats and the Dot-Com Bust
There were two major problems that threatened the viability of online shopping at the end of the twentieth century. The first problem was that hackers were causing a lot of identity theft issues for people who were shopping online. The second problem was that the dot-com bust resulted in a number of online retailers going bankrupt. These two things, particularly when combined together, held the potential to ruin online shopping for good. However that isn’t what happened. Instead, security was strengthened and stores came back. This shows that there is a high demand for online shopping in our society.
Twenty-first Century Changes to Online Shopping
Online shopping continues to grow and change in the twenty-first century. Some of the major changes that have occurred include:
Owing to:
The need arise for the development of ONLINE SHOPPING SYSTEM software that will help to solve these problems.
The main purpose of this study is to develop ONLINE SHOPPING SYSTEM that will help in sales, distribution of ONLINE SHOPPING SYSTEM and also gives detail information about them. The program illustrates all that is needed in the ONLINE SHOPPING SYSTEM .
With the growth in information technology, the study offers numerous examples in ONLINE SHOPPING SYSTEM. Customers need not to go to market again before he or she can purpose book. Time wasted in going to market is reduced to the bare minimum as the software help to facilitate business work. Individuals on their own can order for goods form their houses with the help of the software.
The aims and objectives of this project are listed below:
This project work is narrowed to the ONLINE SHOPPING SYSTEM of most goods. The names of the available goods and their prices are listed.
Owing to the scope of this project work as stated above, this project work is limited to only.
It is important to mention here that time was a major constraint in the course of fact finding. It is also wise to mention here that some information we need to work with were not collected because of the nature of business.
Why does electronic shopping exist? For customers it is not only because of the high level of convenience, but also because of the broader selection; competitive pricing and greater access to information. [5] [6]
It is also assumed that ONLINE SHOPPING SYSTEM will enhance and facilitate buying and selling.
1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS
COMPUTER is an electronic device used for to accept data inform of input and process the data, store the data and has the ability to retrieve stored data.
HARDWARE is the physical component of computer
SYSTEM is the collection of all part of computer including human being.
STORAGE is a media for storing data/information.
DATABASE is the collection of related files.