Online shopping is often a fast growing kind of e commerce. It involves buying straight from the seller over the web without the need of a 3rd party - the intermediary service. An eshop, e-store, web store etc. some of the words employed to describe web sites that sell products.
Even though online retailing has evolved in a very fast pace during the last couple of years, still it has a long distance to go. Especially because internet remains not available throughout the developing world. Accessing internet is not easy in a lot of developing countries - and even where it is, people choose to use it for emails and general stuff.
Also, internet shopping is still viewed with suspicion by a large number of the population. Most of the people wish to know exactly what these are buying. They want to hold it of their hands, or feel it or find out how big it can be (in the event, say, of an teddy bear) if it is often a matter of clothes - people prefer to wear and look and the size and observe it looks - all this is not possible online. Customers like to haggle, try to make the vendor pull down the rates.
But that does not mean all is lost. A growing group pf people prefer internet shopping to real life shopping. Those are generally people who are pushed for time. It makes much more sense for many years to click at a website and order flowers to get a forgotten anniversary at lunch time in the office than rush towards the shops after work when it might be far too late. Youngsters too, like to see various options online - a great deal of which might stop available within their city. For example, online book stores usually are well-stocked compared to best of libraries or book stores in the small cities. Such, while others are part of your ever-growing population of people who spend more time clicking away online then bag-hauling offline. Of course, people still won't buy groceries online, but online shopping has learnt to outpace its baby steps and is also fast striding towards a brighter future.