The growth of online shopping will one day lead to all shops in towns and cities closing. Do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
With the rapid growthexpansion of e-commerce, many speculate that traditional brick-and-mortar stores will eventually disappear. However, despite the growing dominance of e-commercedespite its dominance, I firmly believe that physical shops will continue to exist, as they provide distinctirreplaceable advantages such as hands-on shopping experiencessensory shopping experiences and immediate product access. In this essay, I will explain why.
One key reason why physical stores will not vanish is that they offer a hands-on shopping experiencephysical and immersive shopping experience that online platforms cannot replicate. Customers value the ability to see, touch, and try products before making a purchase, particularly for items such as clothing, furniture, and electronics. In contrast, online shopping often results in dissatisfaction due to differences between what customers expect and what they receivediscrepancies between expectations and reality. For example, many consumers have reported receiving clothes that do not fit as expected, resulting in the inconvenience of returnsleading to inconvenient returns. This fundamental aspect of human psychology—the need to interact with products before buying—psychology - the need to interact with products before buying, ensures the survival of physical stores.
Another crucial factor is the immediacy of in-store purchases, which remains a significant advantage over e-commerce. While online retailers have made strides in speeding up deliverymade strides in fast delivery, even same-day shipping cannot always meet certain urgent consumer needsmeet the urgency of certain consumer needs. Grocery stores, pharmacies, and hardware shops, for instance, provide essential goods instantly, which is particularly vital in emergencies. For example, if someone urgently needs medicationneeds a crucial medication, waiting for an online order is impractical, making local stores indispensable.
In conclusion, despite the growing influence of online shopping, physical stores will persist due to the need for direct product interaction and immediate accessaccessibility. Therefore, the idea that all shops will eventually close is an overstatement rather than an inevitable outcome.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response presents a clear, consistent disagreement and supports it with two relevant, well-developed reasons in a polished and logically organised argument. Its main limitation is that a few claims are somewhat broad and one complex sentence has faulty punctuation, so the highest-priority improvement is to sharpen the evidence and proofread complex punctuation while preserving the concise development.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The position directly answers the question and is sustained through two relevant, well-developed reasons with appropriate examples.
Make supporting claims more specific by grounding broad statements about consumers or human psychology in tighter explanation.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through a clear introduction, focused body paragraphs, and a conclusion that follows naturally from the argument.
Refine the internal link between the clothing example and the broader claim so the reasoning is even more seamless.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is wide, precise, and natural, with effective topic-specific choices such as sensory experience, immediacy, and indispensable.
Avoid slightly inflated wording such as describing e-commerce as dominant when a more measured term would be more exact.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of complex structures is used accurately, and the few errors do not affect clarity.
Proofread punctuation around parenthetical explanations, especially the unnecessary comma before ensures in the second paragraph.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
The growth of online shopping will one day lead to all shops in towns and cities closing. Do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.