E-marketing Test
Name: Lee Lai Kit
Student ID: 334722
Internet will make physical shops obsolete!
Describe the difference, customer behavior, age groups, products, and marketing
To a fair large extent, I do not agree with the above statement.
Before starting to discuss whether the Internet will make physical shops obsolete. I think it is good to define the term internet and physical shops first. Then we should find out what is their common ground, making physical shops inferior (or vice visa). For “internet”, I would define it as the use of World Wide Web to engage in information-seeking, communication and even transaction functions. For “physical shops”, it is the traditional way of shopping in the streets.
Obviously, the use of e-commerce will be more intense and taking a more important role in the future marketing world. There are a few reasons to explain this. There is not geographical limitation on the use of the Internet, especially during the future world where Internet is everywhere. People can shop at home, office or even in a country park. This creates a very convenient way for people to buy things they want without taking a long way to the city center. This point is very convincing when coming to the European countries and America because people are scattered, but not sticking together like Hong Kong or Tokyo. The use of Internet will surely become more popular when people are more get used to using Internet for shopping. We, as exchange students here, will buy the train ticket, Euro lines ticket or even AON insurance online simply because it is hard to get to every single place for only one product.
Moreover, people are demanding a more customized buying experience now which is hard, if not costly, for physical shops to achieve. When you go to a shoe shop, you expect a salesperson to serve you individually, telling you what shoe suit you the best. This is, however, costly to do so. By using the Internet, the corporations can serve all the customers all over the world at nearly zero marginal cost. By getting the customers’ data beforehand, Shoe Company can recommend the best products to the customers. Nike has developed a My Nike web page where customers can customize the shoes of their own by choosing their favorite color, shape etc. People want some products to show their characteristics and customized products are the key to achieve that. Only by Internet companies can provide customized service at an economical price, with high customer satisfaction.
Regarding the current situation, I would say Internet and physical shops are not mutual exclusive, but complimentary. People will surf online to find the information of the products they want to buy, and may probably ask some questions about the product through e-mail. If they find it nice, they may simply buy it online with credit cards or bank accounts. For more conservative people, they may go to the shop to take a real look. In this perspective, the e-commerce site of the company can also be a marketing/ promotion tools for the physical site. The opposite can happen. When a person wants to buy a product after visiting a physical shop, he can save travel time by buying online. Internet and physical site can exist harmoniously.
Nonetheless, it is clear that physical shops will not disappear in the near 5 to 10 years when we take the age of the active internet surfer/buyer into consideration. The younger generation, for sure, are used to mastering computer and Internet. But since Internet is not invented and became popular until the early 1900s, old people may feel reluctant to try the Internet for shopping. The old people just feel insecure to buy online. They will prefer to the supermarket to buy the daily necessities. So we hope to see more acceptances to the Internet in the near future. But for sure, physical shops will not deplete in the near future.
Knowhow:
What are the functions of Internet and what will increase in importance?
There are four main function of the Internet:
1. Information function - seeking the information of the products/brands
2. Communication function – contacting with the corporation by means like email and chartrooms
3. Transaction function – putting good into shopping car and buy online
4. Infrastructure function – Development of computer network and protocols
I think the transaction function will increase in importance. The information function and communication function is already used widely by the public. They go to the web site to find specific information of the products they want to buy, contact the company in case of inquiries. However, the transaction function is still seldom used by people. Due to reasons like insecurity, unfamiliarity, long delivery time, people are reluctant to buy online. But with the advancement of payment method like verified by visa and better handling process, the transaction process, I believe, will become more important in the future of marketing.
How can you start innovation and how can you control it?
Personally, I think there are two types of innovations.
1. A completely new innovation
2. A innovation improving the existing products e.g. adding a new feature
To start a new innovation, it is always a group of people sitting together for a brainstorming. It can be realistic or infeasible. But they just create a list of ideas for further discussion. Next, they will look at every option carefully to look at the feasibility and profitability (we are businessmen so we do need to make a profit out of the new innovation.
After that, we will do a prototype of the product to see if there is anything for improvement. If the product is fine, then we will conduct a market test, testing the market acceptance to the inventions. If all the steps are finished and good, then the innovation will be release into the market and a marketing strategy is formulated
What is the future of marketing?
When it come to the future of marketing, I think it should be a general picture of what the marketing should be in the coming 30 or 40 years. I think it would be a world where we put a lot of emphasis on customer-oriented, if not network-oriented, marketing with a massive use of the Internet as medium of communication.
Traditional advertising, like billboards, magazine, radio broadcast will decrease in importance because they are costly and magazine and radio are no longer popular as the 70s or 80s. Unlike most of the Internet marketing tools, they are mass advertising where some part of the coverage is wasted. They are probably not your target.
With the use of the Internet, the marketing/promotional tools can be made more personalized and direct to the target customers. For the future of marketing, we can surely observe a greater use of the Internet to communicate with the (potential) customers.
沒有留言:
張貼留言