If you live in Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, or the United Kingdom, you can visit the local Amazon site instead of the global .com site. You can visit Amazon.ca for Canada, Amazon.cn for China, Amazon.de for Germany, Amazon.it for Italy, Amazon.co.jp for Japan, or Amazon.co.uk for the United Kingdom.

Just like when you shop at any other online stores on the web, you need to have a credit card to buy something at Amazon. Amazon accepts Visa, Visa Check Cards, American Express, Diners Club, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, and Eurocard. You can also use Amazon.com gift cards, Amazon.com Gift Card claim codes, and the Amazon Store Card.

Online shopping allows the customer to shop direct for goods or services from merchants and web stores over internet itself, facilitating a great shopping experience from the comfort of home, sitting simply in front of the computer.

A person just needs to have access to a computer with internet facility, a bank account and a debit or credit card, to be able to shop direct from such web stores. This kind of on line shopping has become increasingly popular amongst educated middle and upper class due to the PC and internet penetration in their lives.

Online shopping is a form of e- commerce which provides almost every product and service known to humans, for sale, like books, clothing, household appliances, toys, hardware, software and heath insurance etc.

The web stores and online shopping sites such as Amazon.com, eBay, Futurebazzar.com and homeshop18 etc; allows the customer to choose the desired product, from a wide range and categories of products. They provide the customers with a virtual cart where the selected item would be added assuring that the selected item would be bought and then provides for browsing for other potential purchases. The customer then needs to follow some simple steps provided by the site in order to complete the transaction. The payment for the shopping is generally done by the credit card, after which the goods or services are ready to be downloaded (in case of software, music, movies etc.) or shipped and sent to the customer on a predicted date.

The shop direct concept of online trade is attracting eyeballs throughout the world because of the high level of convenience it offers to its customers, providing them with a broader selection, competitive pricing and a greater access to product information in just a few clicks. Moreover, online shopping also scores over the regular physical mode of shopping because of its 24X7 availability. It provides round the clock assistance, from the wee hours in the morning till the late hours of night, in case of any problem and also ensures returns and refund of goods which are found unsatisfactory by the customer

Another advantage of online shopping is that, one has the option of investigating about the desired product as much as he wants before ordering. The on line shopping sites also provide the customers with instructions, safety procedures, demonstrations regarding the proper use of product and even allows previous customers to comment and rate their products and leave reviews, which immensely helps the first time customers to form their opinion and make purchases.

With lives getting busier and more and more dependent on technology by each passing day, the future of e-commerce, especially online shopping looks very bright.

There is no doubting the fact that sites providing online shopping offer great deals and access to a wide variety of products and brands which may not be even available in regular stores and even shopping malls, but despite of all the advantages and facilities provided by online shopping, it has not been able to create a regular, large and a loyal customer base.

Online shopping sites, which offer shop direct facilities, are plagued by many shortcomings, acting as pitfalls in the shopping experience of an individual. The first and foremost limitation of shopping online is that one does not get to see and feel the product physically, due to which the chances of misinterpretation and misunderstanding are very high because pictures are always far more appealing than the real product. Hence the satisfaction of physical inspection does not exist in online shopping.

Once the order for the product is placed, there starts a wait game, which is very frustrating as the delay in the delivery of product is a very common phenomenon that online shoppers generally complain of. And the woes do not end with the delivery of goods itself, as the chances of mishandling while shipping of the product are also very high, with most of online sites refusing to bear the damages; they have to be ultimately borne by the consumer.

Apart form delivery risks, the consumer also has to bear the shipping charges which is the biggest disappointment of these shop direct web stores, as only few sites offer free shipping, adding to the overall cost of the product, making it a lot more expensive.

The biggest disadvantage of online shopping however is, online frauds, to which online shopping is hugely subject to. There is a fair amount of fraud and security concerns involved while shopping online because the payment is made online and requires the customer to give in personal details and credit card information, which can be very easily hacked in this technologically advanced era. Phishing and identity theft are the most common ways to have access to one’s personal information over the net.

Returning the faulty or defective merchandise is also a big headache involved in online shopping because even if the web store owner agrees to take the faulty product back, the cost of shipping is to be borne by the customer all over again. Moreover the customer base for such web stores is also less because on line shopping is useless for people with less or no computer and internet literacy.

But there are ways which can definitely help consumers to shop smartly from web and make it a more enjoyable experience. One should make sure that the website from which they plan to shop is secure and should only pay with credit card because cash and cheque payments are even more risky. One should also avoid using public computers while shopping online and should navigate to website himself rather than being directed to one through some junk mail and ultimately and most importantly one should keep his social security number confidential in order to make shopping online a pleasant experience.

There are several things that you can do to keep your personal details safe when you shop online.

1. You must only shop at trusted online stores, and avoid the ones that do not provide an easy way to contact the owner.

2. It is a lot safer to visit an online store directly by typing in the web address into your web browser, or by searching for the online store with the search engines. You must avoid clicking on a link in an e-mail because there is a chance that it may lead you to a phising site. Scammers and phishers often send out fake emails that look exactly like real promotional emails from online stores.

3. When you’re going to enter your payment details, you should look for an unbroken key symbol or a padlock in your web browser status bar. The web address should also begin with https instead of only http.

4. Whenever possible, you should use a third party payment processor like Google Checkout or Paypal so that you don’t have to give away your credit card details to a merchant.

5. If you have several credit cards, you should use the one with the lowest limit. So if your credit card details end up being stolen, the thief will not have much to use.