Reflect on the level of impact the Internet has in your everyday life. Specifically, how does the Internet affect your buying habits? Do you purchase products online more frequently than from brick and mortar stores? Why or why not?

It is funny to think that when ARPAnet decided to come out with what eventually became the internet, it was solely for scientific research purposes.  There was no military intention, nor was their networking or retail intention.  These days the internet is not only a great tool in scientific research, but it's basically the one thing that almost 361 million people's lives around the world revolve around in one way or another.  And for those other 6 billion 700 million people, their lives are probably affected by the internet in one way or another even if they don't realize it.  That is what is fascinating about it.  The very nature of how it functions has the unavoidable side-effect of affecting a person's life.

For me after its ability to allow me to communicate with friends and family all over the planet easily, the next biggest impact it has on my life is the type of messenger bag I own or the type of birdseed the chirping birds outside my back porch eat everyday.  The internet has affected the way I not only shop for the obvious things that one would purchase online such as media and entertainment, but it has affected the way I shop for almost everything and even when there is something that I prefer not to purchase online because I want to take a could look at it first or try it on in the case of clothes, it stills helps in my decision making process as to which brands to consider looking at when I do go into the store.  The internet has changed the way I shop from beginning to end. 

Now if i hear of a brand, I don't just automatically assume its good because the cable guy installing a new box tells me it's good.  I go online and find out what other people who have purchased the item think.  This is one of the many amazing features of Amazon that make it such an amazing e-tailing platform.  Since Amazon now sells most everything the average person could ever want from an online shopping experience, there is user experience all those different types of products and most consumers are willing to share their experience and that is awesome because usually once you read about three people's user reviews and they are all pretty similar you can assume that whatever they are saying about the product (or service) is accurate.  Apart from being able to shop for most things naked on my couch, the internet allows me to stay naked while I pay for most utilities as well.

There were times when you had to go somewhere to pay an electric bill or send it in by mail or talk to someone on the phone they were usually hard to get on the line and might not always be courteous one you get them on the line.  These days, you can enjoy a cup of hot cider while you get your electric bill, water bill, phone bill and most importantly the internet bill paid right there on the internet!  These days, the biggest problem with the convenience is also how easy it is to form the habit of continuously shopping online when it so easy to do so.

Obviously you aren't going to pay the electricity twice in a month just because it is easy to do online.  But that doesn't mean you don't buy more of the things you want when you get credit from an e-tailer like Amazon or brick-and-click like Best Buy! I have Amazon Prime which means I get two days free shipping on millions of items they sell that are eligible for Prime, plus I get a lot of videos free with Prime Instant Video and free books and music as well.  On top of that they approved me for $700 credit, so I find myself constantly on their buying things I want, but don't necessarily need.  Amazon makes it easy with their one-click purchase as they have all my information stored on file and when I'm shopping from a phone, laptop, or PC that Amazon is familiar with me using, they make it as easy as one-click to purchase anything that I want.  On top of that they use an algorithm that records the things I search for and the things I buy and then Amazon always presents me with ideas of things they think I'd like and they are so accurate with their algorithm that I end up having to put the new things in a wish list and I keep thinking about how I want to buy it and finally I'll just give in and buy it!!!  They send me so many e-mails that even if I try to ignore Amazon for a couple of days, I get reminded by the e-mails and end up giving in and going to the site and don't leave until I've bought something.

As we can see, the internet keeps me buying and shopping way more than a brick and mortar store.  Online stores like Amazon are so convenient, have a good value proposition, and because they are online, make it easy for me to shop with them more often than I would with a brick-and-mortar store.  I even have credit with a couple multichannel stores like Best Buy, Home Depot and Jareds Galeria, but I haven't spent all my money with them or used up all my credit.  They just don't have the same appeal to me through the internet that stores like Amazon have.  Their specialty is getting consumers to buy when they visit the store, but getting a consumer to visit a store is much more difficult to do especially in this new world where we don't seem to have enough time.  Plus, going to a store and buying things with money we don't have seems so damaging to our budgets and wallet, yet doing the same thing online somehow doesn't feel damaging to our budgets at all!!!  At least that is how it is for me and I attribute a lot of that to the online storefront being just images on a computer screen.  When we see the actual item before we purchase it, I think that clicks something in our brain that this is REAL item that I will be spending REAL money on. 

What it comes down to is the internet has definitely changed the way I shop.  I shop more frequently and with less guilt online then I do with brick-and-mortar stores.  Well, I gotta go.  I just got an email about the new Amazon Echo and I gotta go see if I'm eligible to be one of the first test group consumers that gets to purchase it for $100 of the MSRP!!!