
Online shopping has been around for many years. Many people have found shopping online easier to do than visiting physical shops for their shopping.
Benefits of Online Shopping
There are many benefits to shopping online. Some of these include:
- Using less gasoline
- No walking around the store
- Easily search for what you want
If you have recently visited your favourite online store such as Amazon or eBay, you have probably noticed the Facebook and Twitter icons there. You can ‘like’ the website and even ‘like’ certain products. You can even share what you have purchased, which will show up on your profile feeds.
This is a great improvement for businesses, because their products reach many other people. If individuals ‘like’ a business, all their friends see that. It is free advertisement, which businesses enjoy greatly.
However, many people are uncomfortable showing their purchases to friends and family through social media, especially around holidays and birthdays. Many people are choosing not to share this information on their social sites and some are even choosing not to shop at places that offer to share this information on their social media page.
It depends on the product as to whether or not people will share that information, but many are choosing not to share any purchases at all. This, in itself, does not hurt businesses, but if the potential customer decides not to purchase from that website, it can hurt the business.

Not all companies have opted to have Facebook and Twitter privileges on their sites because of this. Word of mouth and use of social websites are the main way businesses get new business and repeat business. If the customer is upset that their information could be posted on a social website, they may not shop there and may inform their friends as well. As long as your website does not automatically post information to social media sites, you should be fine.
Social media usage can be a great advertising mechanism, but should not be used alone. Your company or business should also include other advertisements in other areas to ensure proper publicity.
If you consider the fact that online shopping has been extremely popular for many years, even before Facebook and other sites became popular, you can see the benefit of keeping social media out of your business. However, if you are interested in going with the flow and keeping up with other businesses, you may choose to use social websites. Just remember that some people may refuse to purchase from you or may refuse to use the social media aspect of your website.






