Writing task 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic.

Buying things on the Internet, such as books, air tickets and groceries, is becoming more and more
popular.

Do the advantages of shopping in this way outweigh the disadvantages?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or
experience.

You should write at least 250 words.

Essay

As technology advances, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people getting access to
the Internet. Not only do they use the Web as an infinite source of information and communication,
they also have a tendency to live virtually and replace many real-life daily activities with similar ones
online, shopping in particular (most noteable). Therefore, experts claim that E-commerce is the future of
trading and commercial (replace) activities. In this essay, I shall carry out the analysis/examine/ of both
the benefits and drawbacks brought by this trend and reach a final conclusion that the former
basically/essentially/fundamentally outmatches any inverse effects.

Generally speaking, a new invention, design or technology application comes directly from the idea of
meeting human’s needs/cattering to human’s needs. By this degree, online purchasing platforms have
succeeded in attracting newcomers and creating a new and interesting kind of buying expericence. This
achievement is due to the convienience of service and the variety of goods at appealing/attractive/
prices. Firstly, from my observation, shopping has never been as simple, fast and consumer-friendly as
right now. With the help of a smartphone with Wifi or 4G connection, one can easily visit the online
websites and markets at any place, at any time. This helps consumers save a lot of time and effort
travelling, especially to distant loactions. Secondly, when shopping online, a buyer is presented with a
great variety of (commodities) products ranging from basic necessities such as water, groceries, books
and food to valuable properties like real estates or jewelry. Furthermore, there can be plenty of
providers for the same products so each company will have its own marketing strategy to compete for
the upper hand in the market. As a result, you will offered unlimited waves of discounts, 24/7 customer
care and other bonus membership benefits, which makes the process of choosing the most reasonable
deal more comfortable and even fascinating.

Nevertheless, every system has a(n) inherent flaw and e-commerce is no exception. One of the biggest
drawbacks is online shopping addiction which not only causes people to waste hours of work and social
but also large sums of money. Although scientific reports suggest that shopping can be stress-relieving
and entertaining, too much of it will have an adverse effect on one’s pshychology. Especially in cyber
space, giant coperates and social media platforms have the capability to gather data about users’
personal behaviour in order to create/generate marketing campaigns which promote further buying
thus worsen/ manipulate consumers’ addiction.

From this in-depth analysis/ examination, I believe that online shopping or e-commerce in general
possesses undeniable advantages (in terms) of convinience and great users’ experience that cannot be
outrivalled by any imperfection. After all, online shopping wouldn’t be widely
accepted/welcomed/embraced/ and practiced/used/employed if it weren’t for its contribution to
human life.