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                                                                                     Chapter 4 E-environment  201



                        40

                        35                                                                  Other
                                                                                            Fibre/LAN
                        30                                                                  Cable
                                                                                            DSL
                        25

                        20


                        15

                        10

                         5

                         0
                             Denmark  Netherlands  Iceland  Norway  Switzerland  Finland  Korea  Sweden  Luxembourg  Canada  Kingdom  Belgium  France  Germany  States  Australia  Japan  Austria  Zealand  Ireland  Spain  Italy  Republic  Portugal  Hungary  Greece  Poland  Republic  Turkey  Mexico


                                                      United    United     New       Czech        Slovak



                                 Variation in broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants, by technology, December 2007
                    Figure 4.2
                                 Source: OECD (www.oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband)


                                    Consumers influenced by using the online channel
                  Online buyer      To help develop effective online services, we need to understand customers’ online buyer
                  behaviour         behaviour and motivation (this topic is considered in more depth in Chapter 9, p. 492). As we
                  An assessment of how
                  consumers and business  saw in Figure 4.1, finding information about goods and services is a popular online activity,
                  people use the Internet in  but each organization needs to capture data about online influence in the buying process for
                  combination with other  their own market. Managers also need to understand how the types of sites shown in Figure
                  communications

                  channels when selecting  2.3 influence consumers, for example are blogs, social networks or traditional media sites
                  and buying products and  more trusted? We can understand significant features of online buyer behaviour from research
                  services.
                                    summarized in the AOL-sponsored BrandNewWorld (2004) study which showed that:
                                    1 The Internet is a vital part of the research process with 73% of Internet users agreeing that
                                      they now spend longer researching products. The purchase process is generally now more
                                      considered and is more convoluted.
                                    2 The Internet is used at every stage of the research process from the initial scan to the more
                                      detailed comparison and final check before purchase.
                                    3 Consumers are more informed from a multiplicity of sources; price is not exclusively the
                                      primary driver.
                                    4 Online information and experience (and modified opinions about a brand or product)
                                      also translates into offline purchase. This is an important but sometimes underestimated
                                      role of e-commerce (Figure 4.3).
                                    There is also a wide variation in influence according to type of product, so it is important to
                                    assess the role of the web in supporting buying decisions for a particular market. Under-
                                    standing the potential reach of a web site and its role in influencing purchase is clearly
                                    important in setting e-marketing budgets. A different perspective on this is indicated by
                                    Figure 4.4 which shows the proportion of people who purchase offline after online research.
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