Is it Better to Shop Online?

Unless there is something you need right away like a cooking ingerdiant, it is usually far cheaper to shop online.  Why would an online store be cheaper? 

1. Wherehouse vs. Storefront
When you go shopping for a computer at Best Buy, you have to go to a physical storefront that costs thousands of dollars a month to rent, or was purchased for millions of dollars.    The company also has to have employees in the store at all times to sell their items.  Those costs aren’t absorbed by the company.  They pass it on to the consumers in the form of higher prices.
On the internet the storefront is a webpage, and all the products are held in a warehouse where space can be better utilized and usually where land prices are much cheaper.   There are also no employees to pay to deal with customers, just to process shipping.  So at Best Buy, even if you buy nothing you’ve used their employee’s time, but on the web if you don’t buy, it costs the company nothing.

More Competition
How many stores are there in your community that sell light bulbs?  1? 2? 3!!?  Google “Buy light bulbs” with quotes, and you get 16,500 sites!  Its a simple concept of economics, more competition = lower prices.  The insane amounts of competition that is only a click away drives prices online as low as they can possibly go. 

The Downsides
These cheap prices come at a cost.  The first and most obvious problem is that you have to wait for the item to be shipped.   You can eleviate this pain by being conscious of where your items are coming from.  For example, I just bought a CD from a private vendor on Amazon.com.  The cheapest seller was from New Jersey, but by paying 37 cents more I could choose a seller in my state on the West coast, will arrive much sooner. 
Another downside is that you can’t try anything before you buy it.  This is essential for things like shoes.  You probably want to try on shoes to make sure they’re comfortable before you buy them.  So use your common sense here.