Online Supermarket System

Online shopping is the process consumers go through to purchase products or services over the Internet. An online shop, e-shop, e-store, internet shop, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or in a shopping mall.

Since about 1990, online shopping has emerged into every corner of life, it lets us buy what we want, when we want at our convenience, and helps us to imagine ourselves buying, owning, and having positive outcomes by the goods available out there on the web. Online shopping has always been middle to high class commodity since its first arrival on the internet in society.

In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created The World Wide Web Browser. A few years later in 1994 other advances took place such as Online Banking, after that, the next big development was the opening of an online pizza shop by Pizza Hut. In that same year Netscape introduced SSL encryption to enable encryption over the data transferred online which has become essential for online shopping.

In recent years, online shopping has become popular; however, it still caters to the middle and upper class. In order to shop online, one must be able to have access to a computer and most of the time, own a credit card. This technology separates social classes and their ability to shop.

In Kenya, The higher the level of education, income and occupation the more favorable the perception of online shopping. It should be remembered that an influential factor in consumer attitude towards online shopping is exposure to technology, since it has been demonstrated that increased exposure to technology increases the probability of developing favorable attitudes towards new shopping channels.