How e-commerce innovations balance online retail trade-offs

E-commerce innovations are commercial activities involving the electronic buying or selling of products and services on online platforms or over the Internet, using technologies that support these transactions. The lessons answer how online retail's advantages relate to its trade-offs, helping readers understand the balance between convenience and its wider effects. They consider the choices and consequences that shape online shopping.

2 articles, 1 video, 1 book · about 45 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   e-commerce innovations · Wikipedia · 38 min read

   Online marketers can offer lower prices and greater product selection. Many customers prefer online markets when products can be delivered quickly at a relatively low price, while online retailers base prices on the speed of delivery. E-commerce innovations include Virtual Fit platforms that clothing retailers such as Tommy Hilfiger have added to their e-commerce sites to reduce the risk of customers buying the wrong sized clothes, although these vary greatly in their fit for purpose. E-commerce generated 1.3 million short tons (1.2 megatonnes) of container cardboard in North America in 2018, up from 1.1 million short tons in 2017.

2. Read
   

   Americans spend two hours less a month on shopping than they did 15 years ago · Quartz · 2 min read

   Online shopping lets people buy a TV, paper towels and sneakers on a computer or mobile phone instead of visiting stores. The share of all retail sales made online rose from less than 2% in the first quarter of 2003 to about 10% in 2019. Amazon accounts for about half of this spending.

3. Watch
   

   The truth about online shopping. · YouTube · 5 min watch

   The carbon footprint of online retail, such as Amazon's, can differ widely depending on the shipping method. Packaging also affects the environment, and different forms of shopping have different impacts.

4. Book
   

   The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon · Bookshop.org

   The Everything Store by Brad Stone describes Bezos's push beyond bookselling into new markets like the Kindle and cloud computing, and his effort to transform retail.

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