CHAPTER 10 USING THE INTERNET

Chapter Objectives  Sources of marketing information on the internet and their applications.  Differences between personal and commercial WWW.  Special culture of internet and its conducts.

Information you can get from WWW?  Marketers should understand what the customers what from WWW, and decide appropriate information for the industry and customers.  Competitors’ Web page may be a useful source:  Products and services.  Virtual shopping card.  Color photograph of merchandise.  Hyperlink ‘More featured items’  Company presentations and location  Newsroom for press releases and articles  Career opportunities ‘the employment page’  Wal-Mart.com egghead.com

Information you can get from WWW (cont.)  For high tech companies, technical support and downloading capabilities are very important.  For B2B marketers, the content of the side is informational about inventory, delivery, quality and price.

Personal Use of the Web  Consumers use the Web for the following reasons:  Convenience-(65%).  Availability of Vendor information-(60%).  No pressure from sales people-(55%).  Saving time-(53%).  Convenience-(51%).  Consumers may be able to personalize Web resources to retrieve more accurate information for their choice.

Procedures for Internet Shopping  Preliminary requirement determination.  Search for the available items that can meet the requirements.  Compare the candidate items with multiple perspectives, such as:  Specifications,  Price,  Delivery date.  Place an order.  Receive the delivered items and inspect them.  Contact the vendor to get after-service and support, or returned if disappointed.

Consumer Habits on the Web  Consumers are accepting the power of WWW.  Site developers should understand inconsistencies among browsers, and design a site that its appearance is more attractive without loosing any copy or graphic.  Marketer should register the Web site with the most popular search engine.  E-Marketers should now customers’ constraints, and their needs and wants.  Knowing the searching habits, Web site should draw the surfer into the merchandise.

Consumer Habits on the Web (Cont.)  Consumers express their opinions about product experiences both positive and negative:  Consumers can start discussion groups, monitor consumer comments or attitudes concerning products and services.  the home of hundreds of discussion about various topics of interest.

Culture of the Internet  Internet was not considered for its commercial purpose when it was introduced.  As Internet was born, a culture of non-commercial usage flourished.  The ideal business on the Internet would build a loyal audience by providing attractive environment in which users could discuss matter of common interests with experts.  Depending upon the business model, the Internet may build global virtual community of people with common interest.

Popular E-Business Models  E-Business-to-Business (B2B):  Dell computer  E-Tailing (B2C):  Amazon.com, CarsDirect.com  E-Finance:  E-trade.com, Web.com  E-Products:  Cisco Systems  E-Software and Services:  Yahoo, AOL, DigitalWork.com  E-Dustrial-Salesforce.com, GovWorks.com

Learning Proper Behaviors  Organizations develop their own ‘Acceptable Use policies’(AUP):   Mailing lists  News groups  Telnet  FTP’s

Learning Proper Behaviors (cont.)   Use normal upper and lower case letter  Avoid ‘flaming’ antagonistic criticism, or sending insulting, abusive and threatening letter.  Remember that is not necessarily private.  When you are replaying, include the portion of original letter that you are replying.  Always identify yourself and keep message as brief as possible

Learning Proper Behaviors (cont.)  Telnet:  Do not stay logged in to a terminal longer than necessary.  FTP:  Try not download large files until after normal business hours.  Users are responsible for checking, copying or licensing agreement.  If downloading shareware, be sure to pay the appropriate fees.

Benefits of E-Commerce  Reduced Labor costs.  Instant communication with customers.  Improved profit margin through Automated Supply Chain Management.  Better forecasting for customer needs for goods/services.  Broader market reach.  Increase efficiency and accuracy.  Better service and support

New Challenges  Competition.  Acquiring more customers through internet.  Keeping existing customers.