Contemporary Research in E-Marketing_8

172 Andreini Figure 1. Internet fields of influence on marketing COMMUNICATION CUSTOMER MARKETING MANAGEMENT what are the barriers to the development of these relations: trust, safety, and manipulation are some of the obstacles that are examined. • marketing research: this function has a key role in the development of marketing strategies. It is well known that no strategic plan can exist without first examining and researching the environment inside and outside the company. The Internet, however, has quantitatively and qualitatively improved data available to management who often have difficulty in managing and interpreting it. On one hand, an accurate review of interna-tional scientific literature highlights the online research techniques and tools that are of greater use to companies; and on the other hand, it highlights how the Internet has a natural tendency to autorationalization (e.g., autosegmentation). • marketing management: starting from the 4Ps,3 it is shown how the Internet has changed the strategy and operative impact of marketing on company activity. Products, prices, place (distribution), and promotion are unequivocally decided by the company, but may become an area of negotiation between companies and customers thanks to new multimedia tools. • marketing performance: in this section I focus upon the best performance indicators for measuring the activities carried out by an e-commerce project. The Impact of the Internet on Customers Introduction As seen in the first paragraph, marketing is defined as a process that enables different people to obtain that which is object of their desire through commercial Copyright © 2006, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. The Evolution of the Theory and Practice of Marketing 173 exchange. The people involved in company activity, therefore, may be many, some of whom are the suppliers, the state, employees, customer, and financiers. But the fundamental person for the accumulation of value is, without doubt the customer, who permits survival and profitability of the enterprise (Grönroos, 1996). The customer4 becomes, for all intents and purposes, the key agent in the new approach to marketing developed at an academic level; the indispensable reference for this are the theories belonging to relationship marketing of the Scandinavian School and the theory on American value (Grönroos, 1994; Porter, 1985). Both, in fact, consider the customer at the center of company activities, in order to create economic and social value even for the enterprises. On the one hand, the theories of relationship marketing consider relationships a suitable activity for creating value, and on the other hand, the value theory claims that the main company processes create value for both sides. Both, however, consider marketing the main activity suitable for the creation and perception of value on the part of the customer and company. Berthon, Holbrook, and Hulbert (2000) claim to this effect that “the type of modern marketing evolution depends on two distinctive keys or dimensions: one lower or one higher level of market power owned alternatively by the consumer or the producer.” These same authors explain, in fact, that after the era of customer supremacy, induced by different factors, among which is hypercompetition, overproduction, and the opening of international commerce, the era of “strong interaction using paradigms of emerging information” is reached. This means that companies must participate in the formation of traditional and virtual market relationships which must be increasingly more intense and well constructed, to satisfy not only the final customer, but also the company stakeholders. It is fundamental to first consider the company: it decides in which stage of the commercial relationship and in what way the customer may actively participate in the creation and commercialization of goods or services, and only afterward may the customer decide for him-/herself if and how to actuate such a transaction, according to his/her maturity and tendency to use new technology. The clash between these two “cultures” leads to the development of new relationships which can create alternative forms of interaction, based not only on the use of a single or prevalent communication tool, but also on the integration of different tools of consumer marketing. So, for example, in the area of online customer care, communications through e-mail can be integrated by a toll-free number, fax, telephone, and other forms of company communication. Copyright © 2006, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. 174 Andreini The Behavior of the Modern Consumer The customer, as shown above, is the center of marketing activities, and his/her satisfaction is the principle key to the success of the company. The Internet represents, in this respect, an extremely efficient tool. It facilitates the interac-tion between customer and company, allowing the company not only to satisfy the customer’s requirements, but also to understand the needs and habits of its users more clearly, quickly, and cheaply. This cognitive process leads to a better structuring of both the company supply and networks with suppliers, and internal organization by the company. In order to improve the ability of the company to understand in-depth and construct supply suitable for the customer’s requirements, Leeflang and Wittink (2000) maintain that the market quota must be replaced by the “customer quota” and that the brand manager should be replaced by the “customer manager” and finally, the profitability of the product must be replaced by the profitability of the customer. These activities have been established for many years in industrial sectors since the number of industrial customers is less and nominally they account for a major part of turnover. However, the use of the Internet now also allows similar analysis and monitoring processes to be applied to vast numbers. In particular, the study of customer behavior on the Internet is strongly related to certain marketing variables (Hoffman, Novak, & Yung, 2000) of fundamental importance for the support of managerial activity and particularly for the following: • Creating communication and relationships with the customer • Stimulating buying and contact with the company • Checking the degree of online customer satisfaction • Understanding the role of online company brand names • Construction of interactive and attractive Internet sites The theories of online buying behavior are divided into different tendencies: Wind (2001) has underlined the urgency to completely modify business strategies in light of new technology available to consumers of the new millennium. Mahajan (2001) concluded, on the contrary, that many aspects of the behavior of the final consumer and marketing remain the same, and he advises customer managers instead to go into the human features of buying behavior more deeply. A third theory has risen from these two theories, known as the “hybrid consumer” by Wind and Mahajan (2002). This describes the consumer/user as Copyright © 2006, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. The Evolution of the Theory and Practice of Marketing 175 one who uses different media and combines human needs with highly rational behavior. The modern consumer is not yet the cybernetic agent, super comput-erized, and already informed, as described in the first theories of Internet marketing (Cronin, 1994), but he/she is neither a more traditional consumer as described in the first marketing manuals (Kotler, 1984). The new concept consumer has been classified a “centaur,” an image that indicates the upper part of the centaur as the more rational aspect of the buying process, and the lower part as the more irrational and impulsive aspect of the buyer. This representation depicts a subject that, although having mastered new technology, is still guided by very human desires. He/she is the humoral consumer, that is, he/she shows the behavior of unpredictable consumption; but it is essential for companies to be present at all the relevant points of contact and interaction with him/her. The arrival of the Internet and the recent development of new communication and interaction tools (Web TV, mobile phone, satellite, etc.) have not ousted the common use of traditional tools, not even within the buying process of a customer who is totally open to online transactions. There is, in fact, the idea that online and off-line customers are completely different from one another, and that the two categories must be approached by companies in totally different ways (O’Connor & O’Keefe, 2000). But this, as we will see, is not always possible. With respect to the consumer described in traditional marketing models, the modern consumer accesses a greater amount of information, has more sophis-ticated means of making contact with the global market and has different media available for avoiding advertising and traditional communication systems. But this does not mean that the online customer is more rational or less emotional than the off-line consumer. In short, modern buying activity conforms to a more dynamic model, where sensorial and emotional involvement transforms the buying process into a “buying experience.”5 Alongside the daily increase in information and computerization, interest for what cannot be identified as rational is placed: namely, the set of perceptions, beliefs, and sensorial activities of the consumer that in the examination of final consumer behavior certainly cannot be ignored. All this coincides with the vision of modern markets, in which • information is not always available (Simon, 1957). One just has to think that with a single research engine only just over 50% of the significant pages on a specific topic are identified and this percentage rises to 90% if one uses at least six different research engines (Bradlow & Schmittlein, 2000); • decisions are taken according to limited rationality, seeking the most satisfying but not the best solution (Simon, 1957); and Copyright © 2006, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. 176 Andreini • it is not true that the choice of market subjects are always directed toward opportunist aims (Adler & Kwon, 2002; Yli-Renko et al., 2001). Behavior and adaptive learning should in fact be considered, that is, the so-called phenomenon of “path dependency” (Bell & Pavitt, 1993; Nelson & Winter, 1982; Rosenberg, 1995). For this reason, analysis of consumers by the company should be characterized, on the one hand, by usefulness and functionality, and that they develop new technological tools during online purchases, and on the other, by the examination of perceptive and sensorial behavior of the traditional buying process integrated with new systems of communication and transaction. Internet and new technology are not able today to replace the pleasure of certain segments of clientele of going into a perfume shop, testing the cosmetics personally, trying different fragrances, and exchanging opinions on the experi-ence with sales staff and friends. With this image, one can conclude that although new technology has brought more tools of information and rationality into the buying process, it cannot replace the human pleasures of personal and sensory interaction, an aspect that must be strongly monitored by the company. Differences Between the Online Buying Process and the Traditional Buying Process In the past, in order to better understand the distinction between the behavior of the online customer and the off-line customer, a traditional process of buying was proposed in which the major differences between virtual buying and traditional buying were highlighted. Although this model is useful to schematize different commercial behavior according to the transaction tool used, this does not mean that the customers behave unequivocally or use only one buying tool. They, in fact, may sway from one side to another, sometimes combining traditional activities with virtual ones in order to buy only one item. The starting point for the study of this behavior came from the work of O’Connor and O’Keefe (2000), which compares online and off-line buying situations in the buying process of final goods by a consumer. As we can see from Table 1, the online consumer seems to adopt a more rational behavior thanks to the use of computerized and informative tools, but in reality, the buying process is currently a combination of the two models shown above. An online buyer may, in fact, perceive a need for a particular product from the mass media, seek information and evaluate the products on the Internet, exchange opinions with persons he/she knows and trusts, buy in a physical shop and then evaluate the performance of the product in an online community. Even Copyright © 2006, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. ... - tailieumienphi.vn