WHAT IS ESHOPPING?
... Sarah
by Alan J. Zell, Ambassador of Selling

Dear Mr. Zell. I'm puzzled. Please give detailed information on: what is eshopping, what are its primitive and modern applications, what are its merits and its demerits? Please give me an elaborate description of each.

Sarah

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Sarah, I hadn't heard of the term "eshopping" so I don't know if I can give you a detailed description what it is. It is, (and I think it would be written "e-shopping") I assume, just what it indicates – that people do their shopping using the Internet. Usually the term applied to shopping on the web is called "e-commerce" and that can be divided into several different applications – Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Government (B2G). These terms refer to how and what a business sells while the term you asked, eshopping, would refer to how people use the internet to shop and buy vs shopping by going to stores or buying from catalogues or reading adv in newspapers and magazines.

As to primitive and modern applications the Internet has provided people an additional way to find products and services. That's all it does. If one goes back far enough, before printing was invented, people went to the markets or the vendors went from town-to-town and house-to-house.

Then, in the mid 1700's, along came the broadsheet (the first newspapers) and people with something to sell put advertisements in them. Then we had mail and people with something to sell sent out letters and offers by mail. Then there was radio but the message was fleeting unless one ran their advertisements more than once followed in the 50's by television. Catalogs were a combination of newspapers and letters. The fact that each new format for marketing came on did not eliminate the ones that had preceded them.. Rather, it just gave us another way to get information to people or for people to find what they were looking for. Now, we've added another format called the Internet. It won't nor has it dislodged any other format for spreading or finding information.

People "surf" magazines and newspapers in much the same way they surf the web . . . when there is something they are looking for that goes with what they are doing or are planning to do. If they are not doing or planning anything they don't go looking/surfing.

Are there pluses and minuses? Yes, with all forms of communication there are. No one works all the time but all work some of the time.I believe I've touched upon all your questions. Elaborate or detailed, they are not, but I hope they have helped you.

As I'm typing this and going over and over your questions, I surmise that you are a student and you are having to write a paper on the subject. Am I right? If so, what grade are you in, what school do you go to and what class are you writing this report for?

And, I hope we get a good grade.

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