E Shop Guardian: Online Shopping

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For many years, a shopping mall was the center of all shopping 
activity for many people. However, with technology came online shopping,
 which in many ways, revolutionized the way people shop and do business.
 Many businesses adopted this new trend by setting up online stores to 
complement their physical stores. Currently, the decision to visit the 
local mall or shop online is a matter of personal preference, and the 
reasons for preferring one mode of shopping to the other vary, depending
 on who you ask. Below is a brief comparison of these two concepts.<br />
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<b>The Similarity between the Shopping mall and an Online Store</b><br />
The
 one thing these venues and online stores have in common is the wide 
variety of products and services that you can find in one place. The 
concept behind malls is to have an all-under-one roof design, whereby 
different vendors, retailers, service providers and other businesses can
 offer their products and services. Therefore, shoppers don't have to 
move from one location to another, trying to find a particular brand or 
business.<br />
<br />
Some of the common facilities that you can find in one 
of these venues include grocery stores, fast food outlets, cinema halls,
 supermarkets, banks, gaming arcades, electronic stores, and many more. 
The same concept applies to online shopping, though in a virtual state. 
Online shopping allows you to conveniently shop from multiple stores, 
simultaneously. However, online shopping has a slight advantage in that 
the range of products and services offered are limitless, whereas the 
shopping mall has to deal with space constraints.<br />
<br />
<b>The Advantages of Shopping Malls over Online Stores</b><br />
Buying
 your stuff from the shopping mall is ideal, especially when it comes to
 buying personal effects such as clothing and jewelry. Some items 
require you to first, try them on, before you can buy. Buying clothes, 
underwear, jewelry and other personal effects, online, poses various 
challenges. First, it may not be possible to tell the exact color, size,
 and texture, among other attributes. When it comes to other items such 
as watches and jewelry, it may be impossible to verify the authenticity.
 Even though these attributes may be indicated, and some images of the 
items posted online, it is only through visiting the shopping mall that 
you can try out an item, verify the authenticity, and be satisfied 
before buying.<br />
<br />
With the wide range of facilities that are 
physically available in these malls, you can take your family along to 
have a treat. You may choose to do an all-inclusive family shopping, 
grab something to eat in the restaurants, take your children to the 
video game arcades, watch a movie, visit the beauty salon, pay some 
bills, among other activities. With online stores, you can just shop.<br />
<br />
<b>The Advantages of Online Stores over Shopping Malls</b><br />
Many
 people have busy schedules, hence finding the time to go to the mall, 
whether alone or with their families is impossible. You need 
considerable energy and time to go shopping. Apart from this, getting 
stuck up in traffic, having to wade through crowds of people, or having 
to deal with the hustle and bustle of children running around in the 
shopping mall is not the ideal shopping experience that some people 
would like. For this reason, they would rather stay at home and shop 
online, since it is more convenient. The comfort of your home or office,
 as well as the considerable time-saving is appealing to many shoppers.<br />
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In
 summary, both concepts seem to have their share of advantages and 
disadvantages. As such, the decision to shop either online or visit the shopping mall lies with individual circumstances, as well as preference.</div>
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7301802</div>

Shopping Malls Vs Online Shopping - Which Is Better?

For many years, a shopping mall was the center of all shopping activity for many people. However, with technology came online shoppi...

+ Read more »

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    Purchasing clothing online can be one of the most hazardous 
experiences for both supplier and for consumer and the reason for this 
is perhaps most exemplified by a cinematic legend. Winston Groom's 
character Forrest Gump once said "Life is like a box of chocolates, you 
never know what you're gonna get". Buying clothing online is exactly the
 same, you really never know what you are going to get. This is 
particularly true if the buyer has no previous experience or knowledge 
of the brand they are contemplating buying which can be problematic to 
say the least.<br />
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Why is buying clothing online so troublesome?<br />
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Clothing
 is one of those commodities open to interpretation about sizing and the
 "fit" of the garment for example in the USA the waist sizes are usually
 attributed to the waist of the body of the wearer while in the UK the 
waist size of the clothing refers to the garments dimensions and not the
 person's body.<br />
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You can see where this may cause problems straight
 away when buying trousers or jeans. One question is the brand American,
 English or European?<br />
Do consumers bother to ask themselves that question?<br />
Of
 course not and why would they? Consumers want solutions not obstacles 
they want their requirements met with as little fuss as possible. 
Consumers are not concerned with the intricacies of the way clothing is 
engineered and to what specification.<br />
<br />
In Germany large online 
catalogue brands like Neckermann and Otto have actually built 
multi-million Euro buildings to handle their customers returned goods. 
The German culture is to buy three sizes of each clothing product, try 
them on and keep the best fitting whilst returning the other two 
products back to the catalogue company. This is cultural and engrained 
to the point businesses account for this and evolve based upon this 
methodology.<br />
<br />
Large brands in the UK have also started practice 
this measure and utilise on-site warehouses the size of aircraft hangers
 to store and re-sort the returns back into for sales areas. This has 
become much more prevalent thanks to the sharp increase in online 
purchasing.<br />
It could be easy construed that if the large 
multinational brands in the clothing industry cannot secure higher 
conversion of sales and less returns. What hope then have the smaller 
players got to make sure they are not over loaded or worse still their 
cash flow is impeded?<br />
<br />
Speaking from the perspective of a workwear 
clothing supplier we have often encountered online shoppers who are very
 quick to send products back which they say don't fit. Taking out the 
returns for faults from the equation as this would be a separate issue, 
returns sent back because of the leg length or the waist sizes being 
"wrong" are very common reasons.<br />
We don't blame the customers as 
the vast majority are genuinely victim to brands interpretations of 
sizing and perhaps the large brands have spoiled them a little by 
allowing returns sent back for any reason. For smaller businesses though
 this can essentially put the problem and the cost back on to that 
business. Some people believe this is simply a cost of running an online
 business but there are ways to minimise the exposure to these costs and
 problems.<br />
<br />
We have all tried on clothing in shops and stores which
 just didn't quite look right even though they were designated our size.
 If you cannot physically see the goods and try them on before buying 
then it's simple logic to expect a greater level of returns and the 
large brands have written this contingency into their pricing structure 
to cope with the higher percentages of returns.<br />
The smaller 
supplier does not have this elasticity in their business model to absorb
 the costs or increase the margin as they predominantly supplier market 
priced goods and not "own brand" clothing like the larger players.<br />
<br />
Concentrating on the ecommerce websites, how can their service improve to limit the returns due to sizing issues?<br />
<br />
The
 answer is quite simple yet the execution can be extremely complex, time
 consuming and expensive however if you view it as an investment your 
clothing business may grow faster and the relevancy of your website will
 increase many times in the larger search engines rankings.<br />
We 
live in an age when video and images make up a vast amount of shared 
information on social feeds around the world for a very good reason, "a 
picture paints a thousand words" which is an old Chinese proverb but one
 that is more pertinent today thanks to Social media proliferation.<br />
Utilising
 images and video clips in your "buyers guide" portion of the website 
along with descriptive unique text which explains the "fit" of the 
clothing in very easy straight forward terms should serve to educate 
those shoppers who want to make sure they have chosen the right 
clothing.<br />
<br />
Just writing a description will work to some extent but 
if you can produce a video which allows people to see the clothing on 
another human body it may well give them a clearer understanding and 
allow them to make a more informed choice.<br />
<br />
Every customer who 
wants a jacket, pair of trousers or T-Shirt has a need, a requirement 
and the aim should be to fulfil this need and reduce buyer's margin of 
error based on sizing and representation issues.<br />
One upshot to 
this approach, as the web becomes more social and search engines 
actively seek out social indicators to gauge how relevant a website is. 
Couple this with the fact you produce videos and images which will help 
consumers buy the right product you may in fact find your customers 
share these snippets around amongst their social feeds. This will make 
your site look quite popular while providing them with a much sought 
after service and in return make the search engines view your site as 
very relevant.<br />
<br />
It therefore doesn't take much thought to start 
contemplating what content to shoot, produce and also what direction you
 should go with in terms of sharing. Here is a hint, what do you like to
 see videos of when you check your Facebook or Google+ page?<br />
<br />
As I 
said it's a simple element however the execution could be problematic 
due to time restraints, money, skills and the lack of familiarity to 
editing software but the benefits could be huge both in terms of SERP's 
(Search Engine Results Pages) and converted sales.<br />
You can find 
video editors who will work for scale but the best will always charge a 
premium price, the best way would be to look for editing software like 
Final Cut or Adobe Premiere to create your own content. These programs 
are expensive but the capability to produce slick, informative well 
rendered clips is an almost untapped market and one that will add value 
to your website and to your brand equity.<br />
<br />
Of course there will 
always be the consumers who just buy clothing on spec with little or no 
research and no matter what resources you make available they will spurn
 or ignore them. All you can do is provide the most informative and 
helpful content you can in order to reduce the amount of unnecessary 
returns for your business. The concept will catch on and if you combine 
the facilities with a communication mix you can tap a well that should 
yield some fruitful returns and be so far ahead of the curve.<br />
<br />
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<div id="article-resource">
    Grant Martin - Expert in Workwear.  Stockists of Regatta 
Clothing, Mascot Workwear, Carhartt, Dickies Workwear, Helly Hansen 
Workwear, Timberland boots, Cat Boots, Cofra and many more Outdoor Clothing brands.<br />
<br />
We
 have worked for over 30 years in the workwear clothing field evolving 
our business to meet the every changing trends and needs of online 
consumers.<br />
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7513988</div>

The Future For Online Clothing Shopping

Purchasing clothing online can be one of the most hazardous experiences for both supplier and for consumer and the reason for this is...

+ Read more »