Being Aware When Shopping Online
The phenomena that was online shopping is hardly regarded as that anymore. Retailing online has become mainstream, it’s what an awful lot of us do, and it’s changing the face of British retail, and the part it plays in the economy.
The High St. has become a rather different place, as bricks and mortar shops change and adapt within the world of the internet.
The range of goods and clothes you can inspect online, is far, far greater than those on the High street, but online you can’t touch or feel them. You can “chat” with friends online, but not over a coffee and baguette together.
The changing scene in the High street is undeniable, as retailers have to keep their prices as low as possible, and employment in the sector is dwindling away. It is mirrored by the expanding online economy, taking on staff.
Shop assistants are becoming pickers and packers, customer service has become dispatch, and across the industries, new trucks and vans are being built and supplied to keep up with the increased demand from the likes of the Royal Mail, and independent distributors and couriers.
It would seem that one socio-economic pillar has been replaced with another even larger, making online shopping a mainstay of day to day living, and an integral part of today’s society.
As with all societies there are levels and classes, and human nature being what it is, that from the dawn of society there has been, and always will be, a criminal class of one sort or another.
With the ease that you can shop online, so can dedicated cyber-criminals find their prey, whilst sitting at a keyboard, just like you.
Where you can find yourself buying goods from Beijing, Berlin, or Birmingham, you may equally face a threat from Khartoum, Karachi, or Cardiff, the World Wide Web being just what it says it is, worldwide.
Rather than the cat burglars and safe-crackers before, cyber-criminals can hack and scam you into phishing sites by plucking your personal details out of the endless bits of information that are streaming around the optic fibres of the web at almost the speed of light.
It is as well to remember, if you shop online, that there could be a threat out there, and it could be you as the victim, and the best you can do is make sure that your computer, tablet, and smartphone are kept free from problems is by making sure that you have effective and updated antimalware and antivirus software running before you go online.