How often do you order something online? Do you find yourself perusing clothing websites every time you get bored, or do you only resort to ordering items when you’ve already tried every single shop in your city? According to Oberlo, there were over 273.49 million online shoppers in the United States in 2024, and that number is only expected to rise over the next 5 years.
When it comes to what these shoppers are purchasing the most, clothing is the number one item people are ordering. After that comes shoes, food and beverages, cosmetics and body care items, pet products, books and entertainment, accessories, drugstore and health products, consumer electronics and toys and baby products.
If you think online shopping has gotten out of hand already, Instapage predicts that a whopping 95% of purchases will be made online by 2040. And inBeat Agency reports that the average European consumer is already spending over $1,000 per year on online shopping.
As far as where customers are spending their money, it’s not surprising that Amazon is leading the way in e-commerce in the United States. But there are some extremely successful companies following behind, including Walmart, Apple, eBay, Target, The Home Depot, Costco, Best Buy, Carvana and Kroger.
It’s not hard to see why so many consumers prefer online shopping. It’s convenient, it’s easy to find the best deals, and it allows customers to find countless products that they wouldn’t have even known existed if they only shopped in-store. Plus, the experience is painless for shoppers who don’t have cars, don’t want to sit in traffic and don’t want to have to interact with employees. But is it really worth it?
Aside from the obvious risk of not knowing exactly what’s going to show up on your doorstep, there are some other downsides to online shopping. First of all, it’s terrible for the environment. Earth.org reports that all of this online shopping means companies are creating excessive amounts of waste, from bubble wrap to boxes. And sadly, not even 14% of the plastic waste that’s produced globally each year actually ends up getting recycled.
But it’s not just the packaging that can be harmful to the planet when we order things online. We also have to consider the impact of shipping and transportation. Statista reports that in 2020, the shipping and return of products purchased virtually accounted for 37% of the total GHG emissions created by e-commerce. And sadly, this issue is expected to only get worse, as it’s estimated that by 2030, the sheer amount of delivery vehicles on the roads will increase by 36%. Meanwhile, it will actually take them longer to reach customers due to the increase in traffic.
As you can clearly see from this list, if the price of an item online seems too good to be true, it probably is. It’s really not worth it to buy a cheap knock-off that you think will save you money if, in reality, the product is completely useless. So if you want to avoid this problem altogether, might I recommend quitting online shopping? It might feel like a huge hassle to drive from store to store or actually spend time trying on clothes, but I promise that it will be worth it when you finally find the perfect piece. Plus, you'll never have to return an item via mail again.
