With Online shopping becoming more popular everywhere across the globe, the brick and mortar stores are soon going to be pass�. A wide variety of options and multiple sizes are available to shoppers, which has primarily increased the traffic on web stores.

The convenience, speedy processing of an order and the ease of sitting anywhere in the world, and being able to buy is fuelling this emerging trend.

Online shopping relieves the shopper from the stress of waiting in lines, running to stores on the day of a sale, and standing in a long queue to pay bills. The facilities of exchanging, returning, free shipping, and Cash on delivery options, have made the online fashion buying trend so much more sorted and simpler.

The low cost online set up and wide audience reach, is drawing small and large companies towards online selling. What besides this is pulling people to fill in their virtual shopping carts and increase their appetite for online shopping?

Retailers are coming up with new and creative ways of selling like web only exclusives, which means special discounts for online shoppers only, and giving out online coupons to avail further discounts. Constant updates on daily deals and sales alerts for subscribed shoppers, also keep shoppers interested in the online fashion scene. Customers can also rate and rank products online.

Making the showroom experience available online, are the virtual trial rooms that are the one stop solution to the worries, of fitting, and looking good issues of shoppers. These virtual fitting rooms have advanced features like avoiding glasses, throwing your hair back, and even trying hairstyles to match your dress, and enhancing the whole shopping experience. Many brands have already launched this feature and are making the most out of it.

Online shoppers can also upload videos, wearing and flaunting their new clothes on retail sites, making it an instant hit with fashionistas around the globe. Big luxury fashion brands are going out of their way to give the best of online shopping experience to their customers. Net-a-porter, a well known brand for luxury goods online teamed up with Alexander McQueen, to create a private runway show, exclusively for pre-registered shoppers, to be streamed online, and an opportunity to purchase eight looks of the collection, which normally would reach physical stores a few months later.

Specially designed and focused search engines have made it possible, to compare prices from various retailers of a particular product. They also provide for a feature, where you can upload a picture of a dress, and the site automatically scouts for online options, where a similar dress can be bought, and prices can be compared. This concept can be further availed by fashion shoppers on their mobile phones with Mobile Apps. These weapons have made online shopping smarter and faster, and have provided all the required information on the finger tips, to the coming of the age shopper.

The next cutting edge technology to be introduced will go hand in hand with social networking. This explosive combination of retail and social networking will allow shoppers to share, discuss, and send social recommendations for brands, and major purchases, merging the best of both the worlds. This will undoubtedly become a shopper's delight. While online buying is turning to be a shopper's paradise, it is also working wonders for retailers at the same time.

The retailers going online are also in for nothing less than a treat. The biggest advantage of being online is being open to customers round the clock, anywhere, and any day. This means reaching places, without the need of having any physical presence, and catering to a global customer base. Having an online store makes even the smallest retailer a low cost and effective way of targeting customers, not to mention across the globe and expand their businesses.

Besides this, a web store lets you to provide a customized shopping experience, and in process suggests additional products, that a particular customer is tending to buy. The selling online option helps in determining purchase patterns. The rating & ranking features provides useful insights, about buying behavior and what's popular and what's not.

An online retail store also allows you to write reviews, or give feedback on their products. This in turn, attracts potential shoppers, who would be interested in buying a product, or might end up doing so. In spite of the emerging online shopping trends, and its multiple advantages, there are luxury brands like Yves Saint Laurent, that still don't feel the need of making their presence felt on this front.

If this trend is pushing "physical stores only "to join the online shopping band, then on the other hand it is also facilitating many "online only stores" to set up a showroom and make their products available.

Whether you are a retailer or a shopper, the online shopping trend is here to stay, and is buzzing like never before, and it has something in store for everyone.

References:

1.      Theluxechronicles.com

2.      Wired.com

3.      Guardian.co.uk

4.      Forbes.com

5.      Freshnetworks.com

6.      Economist.com

2.      Theslowbleed.com

3.      Short-jokes-quotes.com