With the advent of the age of the Internet, many companies choose to set up their online stores rather than build their own real store or find retail stores. In this post, I will analyze the advantages and disadvantages of an online store and a physical store.

First of all, in terms of the companies, online stores give them definite benefits of reducing the costs. Since a physical store require capitals such as land, labor. Rent fees and salaries of the employees could be significant costs in their cost structure. However, online store does not generate these kind of costs since after customers pick the products they want online, the companies only need to go to their warehouses and deliver the products to consumers directly. Without renting a big store and displaying a lot of products in racks, companies save lots of money. Then they are maximizing their profits.

Although online shopping cuts the expenses of companies, it generates other potential problems. In terms of customers, they could get their orders within a few days after they click the mouses; however, many people find that the actual product they receive is different from what is displayed online, or they may realize that they buy the products that do not fit them well. A physical store provides customers the chance to actually touch and examine the products they prefer; moreover, the sales employees will try to help them to choose the best-fit one. Therefore, customers rarely purchase the wrong products or those which have poor qualities. Additionally, if customer does buy the wrong one, they can just go back to the store and return it.

All in all, online shopping and physical store both have advantages and disadvantages, which the advantages are mostly enjoyed by the companies and the disadvantages are mostly experienced by the customers.