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Chapter 4 E-environment 201
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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.