Online Shopping Through Generations

What would we do without Amazon? What would we do without eBay? The younger generation of customers will never know, because those two sites were only launched in 1995. Since then, online retail has continually grown and the convenience of shopping in your pajamas on your sofa has become more popular. In 1998, eBay, the world's largest online marketplace, initiated My eBay, which provides customers a personalized shopping experience by allowing them to keep track of their favorites and purchasing/selling history. Several years later, in 2005, Amazon, the world's largest ecommerce and cloud computing platform, initiated Amazon Prime. This service provide members free and expedited shipping. As online shopping continues to expand and becomes more accessible, customers are switching to the web and steering clear of the stores.

Studies have been done to determine the online shopping trends for four generations: Baby Boomers (b. 1946-1964), Generation X (b. 1965-1980), Millennials (b. 1981-1998), and Generation Z (post-millennial.)

With online shopping becoming a huge phenomenon, how much of the population is still walking into a physical store to buy something?

In 2011, Facebook started sponsoring stores on its site based on a user's search history. With so many people turning to the Internet to do their shopping, many businesses will pay social media platforms, such as Facebook, to sponsor their sites and products. The question is, how much of the population will purchase an item they found via Facebook advertising?