Topic 4

Many people search for and order services and products using the Internet. Online stores have databases of their goods and services that you can access. You can browse or search for a specific thing.

Advantages:

• No opening hours and wide range of goods to choose from
• Goods are delivered to your home- ideal if people cannot get out because they are disabled or elderly
• You can order from anywhere in the world
• Cheaper with lower costs of Internet business
• More options and the customers can read feedback and reviews

Disadvantages:

• Credit card details may be compromised
• Harder to assess the quality of the goods before ordering
• Loss of social pleasure and lack of personal service
• Problems with bogus sites where you pay for goods that don't arrive or the item could get lost
• Hidden costs of postage and packaging and have to wait for delivery

Advantages

• Can sell goods 24/7 and less hours are worked and less staff are needed to be paid
• No rent to pay, the warehouse can be sited anywhere and less shoplifting
• Good discounts with suppliers
• Cheaper to keep in contact with customers as you can email them
• Can sell goods to anyone in the world

Disadvantages

• Specialist ICT knowledge is needed to set up the site
• Unemployment- staff in traditional shops lose their jobs so redundency payments are made
• Business lost abroad if other goods are cheaper
• Networks can fail, meaning the customers cannot access the site
• Personal data is kept about the customers and this could be targeted by hackers
• Postage charges can put people off
• Not everyone has access to the Internet so some customers might be lost
• Virus attack could stop people being able to access the store

Low cost airlines and ease of booking mean many people book flights and hotels direct. They can get impartial reports from others about resorts and hotels. They can also book car rental. 

Advantages

• Book from the comfort of your own home
• More time to look for holidays and no travel agent commission to pay
• Read reports from people who went on the same holiday you plan to go on
• Arrange own travel and accomodation
• Find out about the resort before you go and find the right price and can use discounts
• Manage bookings yourself- easier to change 

Disadvantages

• You have to enter credit/ debit card details and these may not be kept safe
• People could hack into the site and know you were away and burgle your house
• There is no personal service like at a high street travel agent
• You could easily enter the wrong information and book the wrong flights

You are responsible for entering booking details, so you need to carefully verify data entered. This is done by a visual check. 

You need to check:

• Credit card number entered is correct by comparing it again with the number on the card
• Card expiry date
• All the fields that should have data in them contain data
• All the names and address details are correct- this is particularly important with fight tickets, where the name on the passport has to match that on the tickets
• Passport numbers against the numbers on the actual passports