Online shopping is a form of directly buying goods or services over the Internet from a Webshop. E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the term used to describe business transactions conducted over the Internet. The process is called Business-to-Consumer online shopping. When a business buys from another business it is called Business-to-Business online shopping.

Payment

Most Webshops allow users to purchase goods with credit cards, however some enable users to pay by alternative means, such as:

1. Cash on delivery (C.O.D., offered by very few online stores)
2. Cheque (usually need verification before goods are sent out)
3. Debit card
4. Gift cards
5. PayPal

When purchasing from webshops, you will usually receice a confirmation saying that the payment has been received for your product. Before you purchase something from a webshop, you should make sure that you are on a secure safe website. You can check this by looking in the URL. It should begin with “https” and not “http”. This means that you are on a secure connection. You also should look out for the trusted website icon in your browser, usually this is displayed by a lock sign but not all browsers support this feature.

Privacy

Privacy of personal information is a severe issue for some consumers. There are different laws concerning consumer privacy, and different levels of enforcement. Many consumers wish to avoid spam and telemarketing which could result from supplying contact information to an online webshop.

Many websites keep track of consumers shopping habits in order to suggest other products to view. Some sites ask for your phone number at checkout, but this is usually not compulsory. Many sites use the address information encoded on consumers’ credit cards (often without their knowledge) to add them to catalog mailing lists.